The Waste of Haste

How many times have you rushed through something, only to have to retrace your steps to correct the myriad mistakes you made whilst in a hurry?

How many highway exits have you missed while going too fast?

How many signals have you ignored in your body, that wise temple that reminds us when our custom pace is a different one than the one we are taking?

Haste makes waste or, as an old English proverb dating back to 1546, states: “The more haste, the less speed.”

Yup.

hasteI think we all know the truth of this saying. But have you ever thought about how haste also kills dreams? Or at least paralyzes them, as this T-shirt I found in a cool store this weekend says. When we go too quickly, we miss so much, including the very thing that could get us closer to our dreams. Perhaps we never realized the very person who could help us the most stands the closest to us. The tragedy of many failed relationships lies in how little we actually see the other person. Perhaps because our focus was somewhere else?

As I like to say, everything happens for a reasonĀ  — mistakes and all. We are on a journey, a path cut just for us alone. It would be a shame if we raced down it without really experiencing the moment, the only thing we have.

You can’t capture what is gone. Only the here. Only the now.

And who — in all honesty — would want to waste that?

 

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