What Are We Rushing For?

I used to think time was limited. So I rushed.

I rushed my breakfast. I rushed my coffee. I rushed to the next meeting, the next call, the next thing.

And before I knew it, it had been ten years of just rushing.

I became a productivity queen. I optimised everything. Even my trip to the toilet has a routine that saves five extra steps.

Then one day I really looked at the Chinese word for busy. 忙. Máng.

On the left, 忄: the heart. On the right, 亡: to lose, to perish.

Busy, written out, means the heart, dying.

I sat with that for a long time. Because it was true. All those years of optimising, and I’d been quietly killing my own heart.

I don’t taste the cereal I eat in the morning anymore. I don’t enjoy the latte I buy. I pay for it, I drink it, and I’m already somewhere else.

And I’m not the only one.

We wear the rush like a badge. Retire at 30. Retire at 40. Finally free. So we sprint: the faster promotion, the next salary band, the earlier exit.

We save our joy for one week a year, the family holiday, when we’ll finally slow down and enjoy it.

But life isn’t the holiday. Life is the 51 other weeks too. The Tuesday breakfast. The coffee on the way to work.

So what are we rushing for?

If the journey is the life, I don’t want to spend it racing past every flower on the way.

It turns out the time was never the thing running out. My heart was.