You scan over the news, barely taking in the facts. Yet the headline and the emotion of the topic stays with you. You may even have skipped the actual article and just read the comments which dampen your mood even further. On your way home, you order at a drive through and let's be honest – the chips are finished by the time you get home. Information is instant and reaching out to the people who are not with you is fixed with a phone call. Just because you thought of something and because you worry you'll forget about it, you send an e-mail. At least something has been done about that thought, right? We rush through conversations without really listening. How often have you thought "just get to the damn point so that I can move on to the next task!".
It's a blur. The traffic, the work, the family obligations. We are stressed out and worried and we forget to breathe deeply so anxiety takes hold. Depression follows the anxiety and when you finally have a moment to sit your fine backside down on the couch, you reach for your phone to scroll through Facebook and you slide into jealousy for all the holiday pictures and happy, smiling faces and you think "what am I doing wrong?".
This obsession to get ahead, stay ahead, be faster, be quicker, get there FIRST. It has got to stop. Our mindset has got to change. Technology and the processes we live within are great tools – they have made our lives easier and we appreciate that. However, we don't need to speed up to keep up with them. They need to service OUR needs. After all, we did create them for just that purpose.
Take a load off. Pay more attention. Instead of just replying to emails without reading them properly, take the time to understand the contents and offer a valid solution. Seventeen-odd threads on one email without a real solution is just a panic attack waiting to happen. Take time to really listen to someone else instead of just getting the crux of the story and moving on with your own perception of the situation. Read the whole story.
Everything worthwhile, takes time. Your finances will become a better situation if you take the time to manage them and set goals. No single individual on this planet (besides those who come from money) became wealthy, overnight. They worked and they failed and they had plans and now we read their stories and we want the same NOW. It just does not work like that. Your relationships take time. You must get to know people and connect with them to have those happy, smiling, holidaying moments. Otherwise, those moments are empty public relations snaps devoid of any real meaning. The cookie-cutter happy life on Facebook took WORK and disappointments and resilience. You are just looking at a snapshot of a piece of their story – not all the dirty details that brought them to that place.
We have been born into a world where everything must be fast and we've forgotten that this fast-rule applies only to certain elements of our lives. We need to remember that the good stuff, the real stuff and the stuff that means something – takes time. Stop. Breathe. Prioritise and understand that whatever it is that you are looking to create in your life is going to take TIME. Time, effort, resilience, humour, faith. No internet speed, no cellular connection and no amount of stressing will hasten the universal rules of time.
Take your time. It's worth it.