The slower we go, the faster we get there

How long will this take?

It will take as long as it takes.

Sounds like one of those super unsatisfying aphorisms our parents would say in the car on a long road trip. Not exactly reassuring when you’re ten years old, sitting in the back seat of the station wagon, waiting for something interesting to happen.

And yet, this is precisely the speed at which most things occur. No matter how good our intentions, there’s typically nothing we can do to hurry the process. Even if there is, doing so only adds a layer of stress to the journey that isn’t worth it anyway.

Buddhists say that the biggest mistakes we make, the biggest risks we take, all come from mindless hurrying. In fact, when we are inconvenienced, it probably means we are being asked to slow down.

Moving to a huge city helped me realize this. Manhattan forced me to stop hurrying and scrambling so damn much, ironically enough. Because contrary to popular conditioning, it is possible for someone to move towards their goal without pushing or confronting or struggling or hurrying. You simply have to accept that pressure is a choice and opt out of the chaos as often as you can.

Rand, in one of her many speeches, paints a devastating picture of hurrying:

I’ve watched these people here for twenty years and I’ve seen the change. They used to rush through here and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there. Now they’re hurrying because they are afraid. It’s not purpose that drives them, it’s fear. They are not going anywhere, they’re escaping. I don’t think they know what it is they want to escape. They don’t look at one another. They jerk when brushed against. They smile too much, but it’s an ugly kind of smiling. It’s not joy, it’s pleading.

How long will this take? It will take as long as it takes.

If we wanted to do our nervous systems a favor, we would learn to accept that everything takes longer than we think it will, chill the fuck out, and try to enjoy the ride.

It’s one of those absurd paradoxes of the universe. The slower we go, the faster we get there. The greater our hurry to arrive where we want to be, the longer it will take.

My friend once attended a meditation retreat lead by someone she referred to as, the slowest person she ever met. Everything that monk did was easy, calm and relaxed. There wasn’t a hurry for miles.

And the irony, she laughed, is that the guy was working on his sixtieth book at the time. The man had had more books than birthdays, and yet, not a hurried bone in his body.

Because everything took as long as it took. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Does this really take too long, or does it just not matter to you?