Why Moving Fast Usually Hurts More Than It Helps

Not long ago I was having one of those days. I was booked in back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings. I went from one meeting to the next without much time to process the one I just had or the one I was going in to.

Around lunch time I realized something happening inside me that I didn’t like: worry.

I was worried pretty much the whole day.

It was weird because nothing overly serious or bad happened in any of my meetings. But there was something about the pace of the day that created a sense of worry in me.

And that’s how I stumbled onto this truth:

Hurry creates Worry.

In a way I can’t quite explain or quantitatively back up the more our pace increases the more our peace of mind decreases.

Our pace and our peace seemed to be inexplicably tied together. The faster we go, the less peace we experience. The inverse also seems to be true: the slower we go the more peace we tend to have.

Sometimes life doesn’t always afford us the luxury of slowing down. Sometimes in an emergency, like when your child needs to go to the ER or when one of the pipes at home bursts, you can’t (and shouldn’t) slow down.

But most of life doesn’t (and shouldn’t) be like that. If you’re consistently feeling like you have more than you can handle chances are something needs to go. Because you can’t do your best work if you’re too rushed to do your best.

I think Ferris Bueller got it right:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”