Yesterday I went on a drive to the store. It was shortly after 2 PM and sunny and there was fairly heavy traffic for a time I thought there'd be very little. One thing I noticed on the drive was how fast everyone wanted to go. It was amazing. Every time I'd hit a stoplight, both the cars in front of and to the side of me would blow me away. The cars behind me would ride my bumper. Now I wasn't driving slow, I was going the speed limit but that just wasn't fast enough for seemingly everyone else. Why were these people in such a hurry on a Saturday afternoon?
Seeing these people driving so hard in the middle of town made me wonder if I'm moving too slow. Then I thought about it some more and realized, even if I go 5 to 10 miles per hour faster in town, I'm really not going to get from point A to point B that much faster. There just isn't enough distance to be traveled to make the speed increase worth it. In town I'm typically driving less than 5 miles. What's more, at any given time I could be stopped by a red light that will negate any distance I've gained on the people who I had passed. On the other hand, I could beat the red light and get to my destination quicker but is it really worth the possibility of getting a speeding ticket? I think not.
The way people approach these short, in-town trips is no different than how they approach most activities in life. People everywhere seem to be in a hurry, warranted or not. The idea seems to be that "the quicker we can get through whatever it is we happen to be doing the sooner we can do something else." I'm not buying this train of thought. I try to savor the journey. Whatever you're currently doing, attempt to give it everything you have. Try to focus on what's happening now, not whatever comes next. This could be the last time you ever have the opportunity to do whatever is happening now, it'd be a shame to rush through it.
Published on 4/24/2016 9:31:35 PM