#012 Rush Hour: Diary of a reforming rusher

Why do we rush? Does anyone actually enjoy rushing? I don’t, so I am taking a stand and putting myself in rushing rehab.

Today marks the end of a month of leave before I start a new job on Monday. Before I started leave, I thought a month would be TONNES of time (despite the fact that it coincided with 2 weeks of school holidays). I would just need a quick refresh, some reading in the sun, and some walks by the lake. And I would be good to go.

It’s funny how we view time off.

There are usually 2 schools of thought – the first is that you write a list of jobs/errands and tick them off, whether you have a day off, a week, or a month. Time off is time to get sh*t done.

The second is that you leave your days free and spacious, with time to relax.

BUT you might get to the end of time off and think, ‘I feel refreshed, but gosh, I didn’t do all the things (like prune the roses, organise the wardrobes/garage/toys, go to yoga every day etc. etc.).

Does the approach you take depend on how much time you have? Or are you pretty consistent?

I combined both perspectives and had a big list of ‘to-do’ on the notes app on my phone. And then proceeded to ignore most of it in favour of reading or seeing friends or doing anything but clearing out my wardrobe. With a week of leave to go I kept projecting forward Argh, I only have 10 days to go and I haven’t done all the things or all the relaxing! Argh, I now have 6 days to go and still haven’t done the things!

Sound familiar?

As I was thinking this and rushing around to get things done, and rushing to be able to sit on the couch (and most ironically of all, rushing after getting home from the gym this morning to get 3 kids to school/daycare so that I could rush to have a (LAST!) solo brekkie and relax and write this) – I had to stop myself.

Coinciding with the start of my month of rest and relaxation (and it turns out, rushing), I started Meditation Teacher Training. It is a 6 month program, where for the first 3 months we explore the different techniques and traditions of meditation, peppered with a lot of self-inquiry – and the last 3 months we learn how to teach. Of course, a key part of the training is embedding a daily or twice daily practice. Meditation is a juicy way to spend time clearing the mind, or it can be an experience that seems to drag as you sneak glances at your watch, wondering if it is time to get up yet. My meditation practice hasn’t been immune to a sense of rushing. Even though I have nowhere to be (except on the couch with a book), and nothing to do right now.

Part of the self-inquiry aspect is keeping a journal. Some people love journaling, some people don’t really get into it. I definitely fall into the latter camp. I keep tonnes of notebooks where I write down notes from books I have read, or ideas to explore further, or notes from courses/conferences I have been to. But I have never been able to stick with a journaling habit. But because I have given myself over to the full experience of teacher training, I bought myself a nice notebook, uncapped my fountain pen, and I have given myself over to journaling.

Interestingly, this week I have written about the need to live in the present moment (subconscious, at it again!).

I have thought and wrote about where our minds like to live most of the time. Some minds like to hang out in the past, thinking about past mistakes/experiences/conversations and replaying them over and over. Some minds like to live in the future, making plans, dreaming, strategising. It is rare that our minds like to exist in the present moment.

Where does your mind like to hang out? (notice I said mind, and not you – because as we all know, we are not our thoughts!)

I live in the future. 100% - what next, what are we doing, where are we going?

Is this why I feel rushed all the time?

If I feel this way on leave, what hope is there once I re-enter the real world?! Where rush hour happens twice a day (or more) - before school drop off and before bed – where grooming, eating, sorting, packing, talking, and cajoling happen to a fairly rigid schedule of school/work time and bed time.

What will happen when I have to actually get dressed for work rather than pulling on my standard work from home attire of leggings and a shirt (scarf or necklace for zoom meetings!)?

When asked by my meditation teacher about how my practice was going, I mentioned that I still felt like I was rushing to do it. And didn’t think much of it, didn’t everyone feel this way?

Funnily enough, it turns out that rushing is not a key part of meditation practice. She distilled it down to a simple word. Presence.

We need to live in the present moment, focus on what we are doing now – not what we did last week, or where we are going next month. 

Easier said than done though, right? 

This piece on presence and positive psychology hits the nail on the head:

Living in the present moment is the solution to a problem you may not have known you had.

My problem with rushing resulted in frayed tempers, clock-watching, thinking about what was next rather than what is now, and that feeling in the back of my mind that I didn’t want to live out my days cramming things in bags while eating toast while thinking about my first meeting.

Experiments in Modern Wellbeing

If you are a rusher (and don’t want to stay rushed), join me on my quest to become a reformed rusher!

As I tried to think about the opposite of rush, dawdle was the first word that came to mind. When I looked it up in the thesaurus, I also came across ‘dilly-dally’, ‘loiter’, ‘plod’, ‘tarry’, and ‘shilly-shally’ as antonyms to rush. For me, these all have negative connotations in modern-day parlance. Rushing is prized, plodding is punished. Fast is good, slow is frittering time away.

Do we rush because that is just what everyone else does, and if you aren’t rushing from activity to activity you will fall behind?

Perish the thought!

Like many of our challenges to modern wellbeing, it is not just a matter of trying harder not to rush. But it is a structural problem. The way we structure our lives around work and not our work around our lives, and our happiness usually centres on the premise that more not less is better – and leads to us always doing doing doing, rather than being.   

Part of the doing mindset is the tendency to live in the past or the future. This month, if you want to rush less, try living more in the present moment.

Easier said than done. And basically impossible to do all of the time (even if you are on leave!)

So here are a couple of techniques I am trying:

·      Pay attention: to when you are rushing. If you can’t course-correct in the moment, we can always begin again and approach things differently next time. If you have back to back meetings, perhaps you can stop in the bathroom in between meetings and take 10 deep breaths. You won’t miss much of the next meeting, anyway (and perhaps during those 10 breaths you will question whether you need to go in the first place!)

·      Course correct: if you notice yourself rushing, and it causes your temper to fray (seriously kids, how long does it take to put shoes on?!), recognise that an extra 2 minutes is not likely to result in a tear in the time-space continuum, so take a breath.

·      Journal: write down the points in your day where you feel rushed. How do you react? Could you react differently? If you are allergic to journaling (I hear you) – start a notes file on your phone. Write down all of the rushing pain points that you notice.

·      Create buffer zones: we often underestimate how long it takes us to do things – add in a buffer to give yourself more space. If you don’t need it, great. You just brought yourself an extra 5-10 minutes to drink your coffee while it is hot, or stare out the window at the trees.

So I thought of these things this morning – albeit midway through a bout of rushing. I had yelled at my 4 year old for taking too long to put his shoes on, and then got grumpy at him when he took too long to get out of the car. But then I noticed what I was doing. And we slowly walked together to preschool, took our time hanging up his bag, and had an extra long cuddle. It might have taken an extra 3 minutes, but both of us left the experience with a smile rather than a snarl.

Next time you catch yourself in rush hour, notice, and try to move through it with more spaciousness and more grace (for yourself and the others you are trying to rush).

Be well, rush less.

Alicia