The Problem of Rushing Through

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

A thought crossed my mind. “Am I rushing to die?” I had this thought before. I used to brush it off. The Ferris Bueller quote encapsulates the essence of life, to open up to live. “Am I missing life?”

Yet, I have an urge to rush to the end. But I risk not thinking through consequences. Rushing through my day, I jump into solutions without thinking about other options and alternative outcomes. When coding, it’s jumping into a solution without thinking about intentions. The implementation could have an immediate problem within the technical details. Or it can have an ethical one. For example, if we have a selection input for gender, you may assume the world operates on a gender binary. That is not the case.

To rush is to deny room to be aware. And thats a decision. It’s my decision if I treat work like race to exhaustion. It’s my decision to rush out of the door every morning, without checking if I have my essentials, to catch the early train. It’s my decision if I prolong getting my eyes checked. It’s my decision to stop working out.

These scenarios lead to stress. Our bodies give us indication of stress. I have made myself numb to some of it. When the neglect goes too far, the body prevents us from moving forward. I’ve been close to passing out the last time I pulled an all nighter at work.

The past few weeks of writing about failures is a reflection of what I’ve neglected in my life and why I stopped paying attention. These letters are to kick myself in the ass and ask, “what I’m going to do about this?”

Let’s say the solution is as simple as slowing down; be present. This is my invocation to begin. I’m standing firm not to neglect the mind and body’s needs. I will let that guide my present intentions.

My hope is for my future self to read this. My hope is my future self has slowed down. And if he has, please follow up and tell everyone how you did it. And say Bueller was right.