I take comfort in this from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.”
But, following the “I’m no Robinson Crusoe” relief that comes from absorbing Fred’s words, I immediately want to rise beyond it. I aspire beyond the suffering we’ve been delivered by virtue of merely being alive. Which, to my mind, is the point of suffering – to work beyond it.
The antidote to haste, I’ve come to learn, is coming home to yourself, sitting with yourself, making friends with the true self within. Still and gentle. It’s the only trick in the book to expose the intolerableness and ludicrousness of haste.
I like to imagine sitting with myself on a bench.
I choose the joy of missing out.
Do you have techniques that halt the haste? How do you practice it?
