I’m an extremely fast paced, frenetic person, but I’m learning to calm down and chill out. In a book I picked up recently this sentence is repeated in every chapter: “Haste is a form of violence.”
Those six words have slapped me across the face a few times lately. I notice that I am in such a rush to get things done that I don’t do them as well as I can. I go through hundreds of support email logs gathering times so I can average my reply speed, and in doing so I see hasty responses that could have been better had I spent just a little more time.
I stand in line for coffee and tap my foot thinking “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Then I realize how violent my need for speed may be. Waiting on the slowest barista ever is only going to cost a few minutes of my day.
I’m trying to stop focusing on a few minutes here and there and instead embrace a chance to lose them, knowing I’ll produce something of quality. (Not quantity.) I hope this is something I never stop learning.
Chris
on 15 May 08Nice lesson. Yoga makes us do this. I have seen people looking at the street including me and complaining why the bus is not here. Just looking alone is not going to bring the bus. Meditation also soothes one.
Matt Radel
on 15 May 08Amen. I’m fighting the exact same thing. When you rush into and through things, you don’t innovate. You just settle into a rock and fire rhythm that ultimately costs you your sanity a little bit each day.
Bob
on 15 May 08ADHD.
Des Traynor
on 15 May 08What was the book?
Tim
on 15 May 08Great thought. I think our culture is addicted to speed. I look at nature and I see a slower pace. I look at other cultures and the pace is relaxed. What drives us to haste?
Paul M. Watson
on 15 May 08Moms have known this forever; Haste makes waste.
Thomas Roth-Berghofer
on 15 May 08Yes. Those six words phrase this issue so well that I was not only drawn to read the article, but also stop for a moment to tell you thanks :-) Sometimes the right way of putting it is all we need to realise something we already know, duh.
Don Schenck
on 15 May 08I used to be like that too, Sarah. But my studies of and adoption of many Zen principles is helping quite a bit.
I’m studing the Tao Te Ching right now; I recommend it to any “Former Fundy”. :)
Mike
on 15 May 08It’s really ironic that this was posted today. My wife is traveling for work this week and I’m in charge of getting 3 kids under 6 years old fed, dressed, out the door, etc. I find myself in a panic at times because one of the kids is taking too long to do something. I’m trying to stop and breath and realize that it isn’t a big deal if something takes 30 seconds longer than it should.
Geoff A
on 15 May 08I believe it might be paraphrased from Gandhi:
The principle of non-violence is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to anybody.
Thanks for sharing this. It does resonate.
Marc
on 15 May 08All things in moderation. Sometimes you need speed, sometimes you don’t.
Tom
on 15 May 08Please edit your blog entry to include the book’s name and author.
Thank you, Tom
J Bishop
on 15 May 08You should read (or re-read), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…
It’s message is precisely what you stated at the end of your post in regards to valuing quality over quantitly…
SH
on 15 May 08@Geoff, I have a feeling Ghandi actually paraphrased this saying, since it’s been thrown around for a few hundred years. :)
@Tom, I’m not really interested in endorsing the book in this kind of forum, otherwise I would have mentioned the title.
Jenaé
on 15 May 08Yes, a profound lesson indeed. I have 4 small siblings ranging from the ages of 1-8 years old. Learning to live with them has helped me stop sweating the small stuff, and just relax when things aren’t going my way. In a sense, I have to sort of “just give up” and let it go, but at least it helps me cope with this fast and error laden world.
Stephen
on 15 May 08As a perfectionist, I have quite the opposite problem ;)
Ben
on 15 May 08I bet if you stopped slamming coffee into your system you could mellow out a bit
SH
on 15 May 08@Ben, I drink less than a cup a day. Coffee has nothing to do with wanting to do things quickly and accomplish a lot in a small amount of time.
Corey
on 15 May 08You can get a visceral experience of this first hand by going to a Formula One race. The first thing that occurred to me was how “violent” it was in person.
In life moving fast can be elegant—it is the act of accelerating (especially against forces, especially people) that is violent.
Cecil
on 15 May 08I’ve read a similar concept by John Ortberg that says “hurry kills love” ... that they are fundamentally incompatible. In any human relationship, hurry stifles the ability to create and strengthen relationships.
Luis
on 15 May 08Serenity now!
Peregrine Solus
on 15 May 08Overstatement is a form of violence.
Peter Urban
on 15 May 08Good post. I find myself slowing down quite a bit. I look at it this way: if I look at all the things that I’ve done that didn’t work out the way I thought they would versus the things that did, I find a high ratio of things that ‘failed’ because it wasn’t thought through enough or not executed well in all the rush. In this context rushing results in wasting more time.
Now I always try to think twice and give it the little bit extra time it takes to execute well. It is not very easy in client based work since for most clients efficiency (=price) very often counts more than excellence.
Ayrton Senna said in one of his famous interviews “In order to to win [races] you’ve got to know exactly what are the moments to push and when you have to hold back….”
If life is a race, most of us (including me) need to learn when to hold back to be able to win.
Peter do you follow me @http://twitter.com/peterurban
Nollind Whachell
on 15 May 08Same here with regards to trying to slow and calm down. A mantra I came up with for myself is “Don’t save time, savour it.” I mean a lot people are running around trying to save time, so as to be able to do as many things as possible. Yet in doing so, they are running around on auto-pilot half the time (i.e. Adam Sandler’s “Click” movie), not fully aware and involved in the transitional experiences within their lives.
It’s definitely tough though. I mean as Tim noted, our society is focused on speed way too much, so much so that I think we’re becoming disconnected due to this loss of awareness. When I’m working, I’m really try to watch for this now. If I start feeling like I’m getting rushed or agitated and thus begin losing my connection with my work, I try to step away from it for a bit (i.e. go for a walk by the beach or forest, exercise, etc). I find it makes a big difference. It’s the equivalent of getting a good night sleep, whereby the cycle of down time rejuvenates you.
JF
on 15 May 08You should read (or re-read), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…
I second that. I rarely finish a book, but I finished that one twice.
Megan
on 15 May 08I was going to mention yoga as well. It’s really taught me to slow down a lot and be mindful of what I’m doing. I’ll often find myself doing simple things like walking to the car or taking a shower and my mind is racing thinking about my latest project or what I want to do in he garden.
Learning to slow down has really improved my well being and almost eliminated my chronic insomnia
Martin Carrion
on 15 May 083 very fast comments:
1) Relative to your last paragraph, remember what Master Yoda said: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
2) At the end of the day I find myself with a lot of time for family, entertainment and other non work related things and with the feeling that a lot was accomplish during the day, the recipe: 100% focus on each task, if is work: work, if is tennis: tennis, if is standing in line for coffee:standing in line for coffee
3) All the over pressure that you put yourself to get things done, will find (sooner or later) a place in your body to stay and become something that you don’t want
Joshua Blankenship
on 15 May 08I find it interesting (and I’m sure intentional, “knowing” your company) that this blog is taking a decided tilt towards promoting/speaking about a certain type of office/work culture and the foundational lifestyle (e.g. slowing down, pacing, intentionality about the division between work and non-work, healthy family life, etc.) that can support it.
I like.
Grant
on 15 May 08A book that (I initially resisted), but really impacted my view on the my hurried pace of life was In Praise of Slowness – great read.
iamkeir
on 15 May 08I thoroughly second Grant’s book recommendation In Praise of Slow.
We can choose the speed at which we experience of time.
Cormac
on 15 May 08I read a great quote recently on this subject that went something like “when you move slowly, like a snail, you don’t have to stop to smell the flowers – you just enjoy them as they go by”
JF
on 15 May 08Nate: Yeah, we’re really making an effort these days to keep comments on topic. The discussions are better when they don’t shoot off in 10 unrelated directions. The email program we use for support isn’t related to the core message of this post so the comment was off topic. Nothing personal, just trying to keep everything on track.
Patricia Garcia
on 15 May 08Reminds me of what this one senior citizen in a nursing home once told me. Wanting to get my work done faster, I raced down the hall with the giant food cart, almost brushing up against her delicate knees as she sat in her wheelchair outside of her room in the hall. She screamed out to me:
“SLOW DOWN! You’ll get there faster.” I thought she was nuts, it didn’t make any sense.
It wasn’t until I became an adult that I understood the meaning of those words.
GeeIWonder
on 15 May 08cost a few minutes of my day
Another way (maybe the same way, really) of looking at it is to use those minutes to center yourself. Instead of rushing to get a coffee, rushing to get back to your desk and then either working at a lower focus or using a few minutes to be able to re-elevate your focus, you can use ‘delays’ as mini breaks.
Also, I think haste is merely a symptom of violence.
Waiting on the slowest barista ever is only going to cost a few minutes of my day.
See, to me, this still sounds very violent. The thing is—it’s not just about losing a minute of your time and your work, it’s also about respecting the minutes and work of others.
I do it too, though. Something for us both to think about maybe.
AJ
on 15 May 08In search-and-rescue training, a lot of us would try to tie the knots for patient packaging and haul/belay systems as fast as we could, which would often lead to lots of retying and adjusting.
Our semi-tech instructor offered us this maxim:
Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast, therefore… Slow is Fast.
Sean
on 15 May 08The first time I ran into this saying was during my early Zen studies … I believe in a book by Thich Nhat Hanh. Not sure which one, but all are worth reading.
Brice Ruth
on 15 May 08On a related note, slowing down can save money, and do a small part to help the environment and fight terrorism (really!) ... next time you’re in your car, slow down. Most of us have a need to be in a car at some time, even with good public transportation, biking to work, and the like. Every opportunity we get to slow down saves fuel by improving your gas mileage ($$), creating less emissions per mile traveled (green) and lessens the demand for fuel, which decreases the demand for foreign oil.
Accelerate slowly, coast, and just drive slower … you’ll get to your destination within seconds to minutes of when you would otherwise. If you’re lucky, those seconds or minutes will be when you have your next great idea! :-)
Scott
on 15 May 08I don’t mean to sound like the contrarian here, but I don’t think the quote is correct. I sounds great and all, but it just isn’t accurate.
Haste is not intrinsically violent, simply because Haste doesn’t always involve appying force. Really, I think Haste and Violence are both signs, signs of a lack of self-control. One’s level of self-control can be a reflection of many things: ignorance, lapse of faculty, chemical imbalance, etc.
But I think all of the follow on philosophy discussed here really just seems to scout around the central point: the individual responsibility of self-control. Trying to pin a lack of self-control on violence or impatience or the ilk is really to disregard the truth.
As an aside, someone mentioned about getting impatient with a slow barista. I have to admit, I’m pretty impatient far too often. But I’ll wait patiently for a craftsman, a TRUE craftsman. Who I have the hardest time waiting out are the lazy and disinterested. I don’t care if they only make 7 bucks an hour, that’s THEIR choice. They took the job, they should strive to give 100%. I do in my interactions with others, I can only expect the same. That isn’t “violent”, that must be fundamental.
JeanHuguesRobert
on 15 May 08The Violence in haste is when one abusively blames others for their inefficiency, pretending to be the better one.
Speed is not efficiency. But you’d better be inefficient fast ! Hence the common excessive credit of speed.
GeeIWonder
on 15 May 08@Scott: I both agree and find things like this
I don’t care if they only make 7 bucks an hour, that’s THEIR choice.
Violent. But in a way the “lazy and disinterested” baristas are being violent towards others.
And so violence begets more violence.
SH
on 15 May 08“I don’t mean to sound like the contrarian here, but I don’t think the quote is correct. I sounds great and all, but it just isn’t accurate.”
@Scott, it may not be correct or accurate for your personal beliefs, but it may be for other people. What’s true for you isn’t always true for everyone else.
stephen
on 15 May 08And that brings us to tonight’s word: truthiness.
Brian Steere
on 15 May 08Haste does not equate to speed as some are seeming to think. A calm centred conscious intent can move as fast as is called for. Such as performing an urgent surgical procedure.
I think it was Wendell Berry who said that he had learned never to rush – especially in an emergency.
This is not really to do with slow as such – in my opinion – but with connected integrated action. Haste proceeds from off centered reaction from a sense of being driven or compelled.
Learning to pause and be still makes it possible to make that connection amidst otherwise stressfull circumstance.
Joe
on 15 May 08So what’s the book? I don’t understand why you don’t want to share the title. There have been hundreds of books and products linked to from this blog.
carlivar
on 15 May 08Haste may be an impediment, but violence? I disagree on that. I just see it as a bad habit. The word is “impatience” not violence.
At any rate, this is why everyone is Constantly Stimulated these days, whether it’s Blackberry/iPhone in the line for coffee or my obsessive need to read something while I eat.
coreman
on 15 May 08Saw this sig recently…
“XML is like violence. If it’s not solving your problem, you’re not using enough of it”.
I think that obliquely also gets at the point.
Is Haste == Violence? Well… not exactly, but it’s kind of like acid rain. The individual drops don’t hurt all that much, but over time, the damage becomes significant and widespread and hard to mitigate.
Irfan Baig
on 15 May 08@Chris, you are so right. I did the artofliving course 8 months ago, that combines yoga, meditation and breathing to relieve stress and anxiety. Within a few days, I had improved focus and my productivity went up by a few orders of magnitude.
Earlier, it was easy for me to brood on negativity, now I find myself more and more IN The Present Moment! and can accept people, things and circumstances with grace :)
Kevin Milden
on 15 May 08Sarah just became my new favorite Signal. Keep it coming.
I wholeheartedly agree, everyone needs to ask for more time to complete anything and shouldn’t feel obligated to move at quantum speeds 24 hours a day. I am guilty trying to do too much and I will consider Sarah’s post next time some one asks me when they can have something. Maybe I’ll give myself more time to bake a better whatever.
dominik
on 16 May 08I agree with Scott. Haste != violence. There’s no physical force exerted against anyone by trying to get things done quickly.
Words have a set of meanings. Haste’s set of meanings do not form a union with violence’s set of meanings. Therefore, haste does not equal violence, or mean violence.
I don’t think this is a question of “personal beliefs” or any some such relativistic view, but rather something as black and white as first-order logic.
Once we depart from words having meanings, we continue down the path of “building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.” I’ll leave it to you know who I quoted there, just as the title of the original post’s book was left unquoted.
Tony
on 16 May 08Regarding the name of the book, none of you all have Google available where you are? Took me all of 20 seconds to find the book.
Brian Steere
on 16 May 08The meaning that words have can never be absolute for the intent and context in which they are used will vary – as is the context in which they are received. The violence that I associate with the use of the word haste (as used here) is to one’s own wholeness of heart and mind, and is generally unconscious. That may or may not serve others ill – but it will be blind. It runs on private agendas as if reality is going to simply fit in with my take on it. Guilt does violence to our peace also – so the point as I see it isn’t so much a blame game or but a wake up call to refocus one’s ongoingly present situation, so as to refresh and rededicate attention and energy, in the line of what is actually currently desired and therefore required. Fears and sense of inadequacy or insecurity make us vulnerable to being programmed by seeming events – yet it remains the unrecognised fears that set up the perception. Calming down is essentially some way willing to release such perceptions and let a fuller picture emerge. Live the day as if your life is worth living well. No matter what. This is my 2c. If it speaks to anyone then they already feel likewise. If it doesn’t – have a nice day!
Bone
on 16 May 08Sarah,
While your citation of a quote from a book as a source of inspiration is an a priori endorsement of the source (whether you like it or not).
One would not see your provision of the source title as an unequivocal endorsement. Yet a simple disclaimer would provide clarification.
I find it only proper to cite the author and book as the source of your quotation. That would seem prudent.
@Tony: Being that the quote is attributed to Gandhi, Zen Buddhism and also listed as unattributable. This quote could very well be mentioned in a number of different books – not just one.
- Bone
JY
on 16 May 08may i suggest not to mod comments..(unless they’re absuvive/trolling).
most blogs i frequent, i find comment section just to be as entertaining/informative as the original post, even if they’re off topic.
silas
on 16 May 08this is a ridiculous thread. maybe if you stopped posting ridiculous comments (both sides) you would not feel rushed and have more time to pursue other things.
Matt
on 17 May 08@ Sarah…
Hammock. Fifteen minutes a day. Problem solved.
visitor
on 17 May 08Western culture is all about haste, isn’t it? Quantity comes before quality of life. More cars, more houses, more power…
Peregrine Solus
on 17 May 08“Western culture is all about haste, isn’t it?”
Ergo, western culture is a form of violence.
Take that, all you Europeans and Americans.
Jonathan
on 18 May 08With all respect, only someone who has never been a victim of real, physical violence would say something like this.
This discussion is closed.