“I feel the need. The need for speed.”
–Maverick
A memorable line from the very entertaining movie Top Gun. But my reference here has nothing to do with flying fighter jets or racing in general. When I say the need for speed, I’m referring to the need for everything in life to be fast and immediate.
There’s Not Enough Time
Recently I’ve been reading A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, a bestselling author and spiritual teacher. You can check out his website here . The book is about the need to let go of the ego and become aware of our Being (aka Presence) that comes before the ego and without which the ego could not exist. He likens this to achieving a greater awareness from unconscious living, i.e. simply reacting, to conscious living, i.e. being.
One of the recurring themes in the book is the nonexistence of time. Time is a form, as Tolle calls it, which the ego feeds on. Time does not have an objective existence, rather our thinking mind creates the concept of time in order to nourish our ego. For example, we create the past to give our ego a sense of identity or who we are; we also create the future in order to have a sense of who we may become, a future identity. Tolle argues that there is no time outside the present Now. It’s a concept that I’ve encountered in the Bible and other spiritual teachings and although living in the Now sounds great, it’s very difficult to practice. Society thrives on the movement and passage of time; our dreams and hopes wouldn’t exist without it.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to live in the Now, it just means, realistically, it will take some time.
Most of my crises in life have been time crises. In college, I started feeling this gnawing restlessness; it felt as if there was not enough time to do all the things that I wanted to do and accomplish. In an effort to make up for “lost time,” I tried to do things faster. I became addicted to learning multi-tasking strategies, time management skills and other time saving tricks. And yet the problem is still there; time is still ticking away, chewing at my insides.
The Need For Speed is NOT Healthy
The need for speed, or the need to do things as fast as possible, is a disease of the modern mind. Wanting to do everything faster and more efficiently has gotten out of control in the modern capitalist economy. You don’t need to look far into the number of new cases of heart disease, alcoholism and suicide, to understand that this need for greater efficiency points to a serious defect in the human psyche. Thousands of years ago, people didn’t live their lives with their eyes perpetually on the clock. But today, you’d be hard pressed not to. For many, sleeping with one’s Blackberry is as normal as sleeping with one’s spouse.
Great Things Take Time
Realizing and fully accepting this truth is one of the greatest challenges young people face today, me included. I wish I could have it all right now. I wish I could have all my dreams and aspirations fulfilled at the flip of a switch or at the snap of my fingers. The concept of five years, ten years and twenty years is incomprehensible. I want it now. Even if I say I’m willing to wait, the reality is, I’m not. At least not the way I’m conditioned now.
Although we may understand in our heads that great things take time, our bodies, nourished on the immediate gratification and stimulation of on-demand culture, reject this truth.
Moving from Immediacy to Patience
Patience is a virtue that most people wish they had. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told by my parents, “You lack patience,” or “You ought to be more patient.” I don’t disagree. I want to develop patience and I know I need more of it, but the problem is, people rarely tell you how to get some.
Going back to Tolle’s concept of time feeding the ego, it seems that impatience, or the need for things to happen quickly, is directly connected to our ego. I want to be successful now because I desire the fruits of success: fame, power, wealth etc. These are things that the ego desires. If we can limit the activity of our ego then we can decrease our need for speed and develop patience.
Understanding the problem is the first step, tackling it is another beast altogether. We’ll save that for another post.
Speedy Success Can Lead to Imbalance
Achieving success has always been a time sensitive issue for me. I grew up with a father who had great ambitions as an inventor, but never seemed to be able to follow through on them. He’s now in his early sixties and though his ambitions have not waned, his vitality has. Having observed my father throughout his struggles, I decided very early on that I did not want to be old and unsuccessful, so I became obsessed with achieving things early on in life. And while this obsession has resulted in me pushing myself towards greater productivity and efficiency in many areas of my life, it has also left me, at times, in a state of unhealthy imbalance.
Many of my darker moments, feelings of isolation, loneliness and exhaustion have been the result of working and pushing myself too hard. It’s good to have goals, but if we push too hard for them it’ll make us crazy.
In addition to the risk of imbalance, when we try to speed things up the quality of the final result diminishes. This applies to anything from baking a cake to writing an article. As a kid, I had this bad habit of fast forwarding through my VHS movies to get to the climactic ending, skipping all the “boring stuff.” Not only was this bad for the tape, but it ended up making the ending less enjoyable, since without buildup, there’s no suspense leading into the climax.
The same applies to life. When we try to speed up the process of getting what we want, we run the risk of missing our goals or making their achievement less enjoyable. Our focus should not rest solely on the end goal, but on the journey as well.
Although no one wants to be the tortoise, we all know who wins in the end. The hare may be cool with his fast moves and lightning speed, but his emphasis on speed comes at the expense of direction. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be slow and directed than fast and lost.
Related Articles
If you liked this post, make sure to subscribe to my feed via RSS , or via e-mail.
If you found this post helpful, please consider leaving a donation to support this site!
Tags: Virtues · Words of WisdomNo Comments
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.