Slow Down, You Move too Fast!

Slow down, you move too fast! Yes, I did just quote Simon & Garfunkel. Sometimes you just need to accept that you're going to be late and relish in that time you have available. Everyone is in such a hurry. This is not a new concept. People have so much on their agendas that they feel they need to rush to do everything and are constantly busy. I'm just as bad as everyone else when it comes to this, but I've been reminding myself lately that I just need to slow down. Take things in as they happen and don't freak out if my self-imposed (or imposed by others) schedule doesn't quite get met. 

These thoughts came to me this morning when I was driving into work. I have to drive over the big bridge connecting I-35W to westbound I-30. It's a two lane bridge, but really it merges down to one lane at the end of the bridge. Everyday, today included, people poke themselves out of the line trying to make it through the end and rush down to cut in at that merge. This slows the entire line down and actually makes these line cutters part of the problem. Today about 10 cars sped past me while in line. Now, I have to admit that sometimes I will pull over and block these people from continuing down the line. I hate doing this, though, because I really don't feel like I should be policing others bad road behavior. It does end up benefiting everyone else, though, to keep those cutters from slowing down the line even further.

The big question here is, why are these people in such a rush to be first? It's not like cutting in the line is going to get them more than even a minute earlier. My mother would say that it's just part of the “all about me” mentality. She's probably right in most instances. I think that the majority of people who do this are just running late. Yes, we can tell them that they should just start earlier. Blah, blah, blah. We've all had those times where leaving on time just didn't happen. Just breathe.

This morning, instead of stressing out about the craziness on the road, I just sat back in my drivers seat, listened to my podcast (on play this morning was The Simple Sophisticate), and took a few healthy breaths. So nice! I didn't go over the checklist in my head of everything I had to do (and in today's instance, re-do because of a networking issue). I just made my way through my travels and made it to work, safe and maybe about 5 minutes later than my posted opening time. Once I got to work, I didn't worry about that redoing of a task. I had a bit of shelf therapy (see photo above), making my library look more together and organized than it usually does after the first week of school. It felt great and I was able to sit down and work at a computer after that.

So, please, for your health, slow down! Breathe. Feel groovy.