In a reverse psychological kind of way, the lockdown has made me aware of how life works at a base level.
I was travelling home on the bus yesterday and we stopped at a stop outside our hospital. There was very little traffic on the roads and we were just off the main road which leads to some traffic lights and a junction. I don’t know why but I started thinking of how the traffic would usually flow after reading the signs that directed the traffic saying ‘all deliveries this way’ and ‘ambulances this way’ too. I pictured in my mind how the vehicles would flow from one direction to another and where one would wait for another vehicle crossing its path.
In that thought, something clicked in my head which has stuck with me, in as much as now I can see and feel how things work. It sounds stupid I know and at my age, I should already know how things work. I do, it’s just that after seeing what I saw and thinking about what I thought, it’s kind of put things in a perspective that I wasn’t aware of before.
It’s the flow, the speed, the motion that has to be taken into account for things to run smoothly and efficiently.
As a person growing up I always felt I had to rush, be fast, and first and be ahead of the game. That was the only way I knew and acted. I would race on the roads if another car was going fast. I would walk quickly as if bolting out of the door as if I had somewhere to get to quickly. When I opened a door I would do it in such a fast action that I had to consciously hold it from slamming on the wall. I used to be super fast at talking, and the words would just fall out of my mouth, almost sounding like a jumbled mess.
If we hadn’t have been in lockdown where life itself had come to a bare minimum what with most people staying at home and I wouldn’t have been on that bus yesterday, then I should think I never would have realised what I have come to know.
Just as cars move in time with the flow of the traffic, the lights, and the terrain, I need to conform to the same only in the way that I live my life.
What this post is about is that once we learn that things are already working in a timely manner, flowing and working, we can take advantage of it and slow down ourselves.
Less haste, more speed is a proverb: Acting too quickly and without due diligence, focus, and attention to detail will result in avoidable mistakes and thus require even more time to complete the task satisfactorily. (The logic of the phrase is essentially “too much haste results in less overall speed.”)
While I’ve been busily working out and planning what’s been going on with myself in my life and getting ready for my future I’ve come across something that will help me more than all of that writing and note-taking ever will which is to take my time.
