Why This Undue Hurry?

OPINION/ Sreekumar Bhattathiri

Are we as busy as we appear to be? Or rather, pretend to be? The truth must be we are too busy even to think about this. Nowadays, everybody is busy, everywhere, every time. Do we really need to be busy? I mean, should we always be in a hurry? What will happen otherwise? Most of us might not have thought on these lines. Everybody is busy. Everybody advises others to be busy. Everybody expects others to be busy.

It’s is high time at least somebody like us sat back and thought about this dangerous situation. We are becoming increasingly impatient with people and situations. We want to race against time and achieve things at least a second before our competitors.

Healthy competition is always welcome. But the hurry and flurry we witness around us is born more out of a mental block which deludes us into thinking that unless we swim with the current we will be left out in the race.

If we, for a moment, reflect calmly, we will realize that most of this hurly-burly is uncalled for. Less thought means more action. Much of our wasteful strain can be dispensed with if we take some time to think well before we act. The greatest lesson that we learn then would be that there is no use pushing things beyond a certain point.

Observe Nature. There is a measured rhythm in the happenings there. A baby takes nearly nine months to come out of the womb of its mother. A seedling takes a certain period to flower and bear fruit. No amount of acceleration or coercion will work. Everything good in Nature takes time to materialize. Bad things, of course, happen with devastating speed.

We, human beings, being part of that Nature, also have to willy-nilly follow its rules to remain healthy, mentally and physically. Take time to think a bit before every action. Act slowly, in a measured pace. Not everything can be done in haste, whoever compels you in whatever manner. An extraordinarily proficient subeditor once told his boss, his Resident Editor, when the latter pressed him to be faster: “Sir, please understand that I’m incapable!’’

Such pressures will only serve to weaken us physically, mentally and intellectually. Please acknowledge the fact that everyone has his own strengths and weaknesses. We require a certain amount of time to do things in our own style. Another person may be capable of doing it faster. And yet another person may require still more time.

Do things calmly, patiently, systematically, rhythmically. Don’t bother much about others’ comments. They will be appraising you from their angle.

Slowly, the realization will dawn on you that a great amount of your previous hurry and anxieties was avoidable.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

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