Slow Down, You Crazy Child

I’m always rushing. Through everything. Exams, dinners, conversations, entire seasons of my life. I feel it—a certain push to be done, to cross the invisible finish line, to get ahead of the moment before it catches me. And it’s not even logical most of the time. It’s not about efficiency, not about doing more or being better. It’s deeper than that, harder to name. It feels like survival. Like if I don’t rush, I’ll drown.

You probably know this feeling. That absurd panic when things are taking too long. That restless itch to leave a party before it’s over, to finish a task before anyone else, to move on before anyone asks why you’re really there. And you probably know, too, that no matter how fast you go, it’s never enough. The next thing is always waiting. The next task, the next room to leave, the next life you need to hurry through. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? To live like this? Always a step ahead, but never fully here.

I’ve started asking myself what I’m really running from. Because that’s what it feels like—a running away, not a running toward. Sitting still, letting things unfold, feels unbearable sometimes. What happens if I stop? What happens if I don’t finish first, if I don’t leave before things get complicated? What am I so afraid of? And the answer, if I’m honest, isn’t pretty. It’s this: I’m afraid of what happens when I have to face myself. The quiet. The space. The truth of how much I’ve missed by rushing through it all.

Think about the last time you rushed through something. Maybe it was an exam, your pen moving faster than your thoughts, just to get out of the room and breathe again. Or maybe it was a goodbye—cutting it short because the longer it went on, the harder it would be to leave. Maybe it was an entire relationship, ended quickly because staying meant letting someone see you too closely. That’s what rushing really is, isn’t it? A way of protecting yourself. If you’re always in motion, you don’t have to sit with the discomfort. You don’t have to feel it.

But the discomfort doesn’t go away. You can run from it for years—through projects, parties, cities, relationships—but it stays. It waits for you. And in the process of avoiding it, you miss so much. The quiet beauty of lingering in a conversation that stretches too long. The surprise of what happens when you stay at the party after everyone else has left. The depth of really sitting with someone—yourself included—without rushing to the end. You miss the texture of your own life, the parts that don’t fit neatly into a to-do list or a schedule.

I think we rush because we’re afraid of the middle. The weird, unresolved middle where things are still taking shape. We want the clarity of the finish line, the certainty of being done. But the middle is where everything real happens. It’s where the hard questions live, the ones that don’t have quick answers. It’s where connection grows, slowly, awkwardly, in the space between silence and understanding. And it’s where life happens.

I've decided that I want to let my life happen as much as I can.