Stop at the crossroads and look around.
What’s the rush?
I send this question back through the years to my younger self!
Sadly he isn’t listening; everything is being done at break-neck speed and with incredible haste. I don’t blame him completely, he is not a normal teenager lying in bed until noon and surfacing bleary eyed with no clear purpose. No, this one has been awake since 5:30 delivering milk and trying to shave time from every street to make the job quicker. He has already reduced the delivery time on his second job by half, completing the newspaper distribution in 25 minutes start to finish.
So many decisions are outwith the control of a teenager; where we live, which school we attend, what meals are put on the table, which church we attend (in my family anyway). I did have a great deal of freedom with my friends and any money I had was mine to squander on anything I desired. Fashion was one decision that should not have been left in my hands; how I wish that I had known someone like my wife back them, thankfully there are very few pictures from that time to incriminate me for my incredibly poor taste in clothing.
Many of my larger decisions seemed to be overruled by a higher hand. Career choice number one was to join the air force to gain a pilot’s licence and then progress to commercial flying in my late twenties. This was scuppered by a change of school and a chemistry teacher who despised me (the feeling was mutual) and a physics teacher who was not called Mad McGrath without good reason (this was not his given name obviously). These being two of the key requirements for entering flight training at that time, it soon became apparent that video games would be the only route to flying that this boy was taking.
Over the years I have come to many crossroads and barely slowed down to check the road was clear to cross, far less to consider if the chosen path was the correct one. The reverse gear on my cars have been well used; one particular vehicle suddenly gave up offering reverse gear as an option mid way through a reverse parking manoeuvre. Thankfully it was a small car and I was able to push it myself, which I subsequently did on many occasions. I did learn from that little French car the value of forethought when entering a situation; for 5 months I nursed it along with only a forward option and encountered many perplexed expressions when rectifying a poor or forgetful decision.
When I read the words quoted above this morning it occurred to me that we are in far too much of a rush. I am guilty as charged on this count; I have made rash purchases on many occasions and immediately or later regretted them. I have put people under artificial pressure using sales jargon and persuasive techniques when selling kitchens. Thankfully I learned from that experience that there is never a rush to purchase; this is not a one time offer, there are thousands more of these items and few sales are genuine.
Why do we allow ourselves to be bullied in this way? The man who wrote those words was under immense pressure from every side and was speaking to people making very poor choices and yet he was calm. Calm people are good to know, for me in my younger days they were a hindrance to progress; but with age has come an appreciation that there really is no rush.
I do still work too fast and accomplish a lot with little time, and when something needs done a decisive course of immediate action is still the best option over forming a committee to procrastinate.
But before we succumb to the pressure of our society in any area of life we could do a lot worse than listen to the advice from a man who knew what bad decisions looked like and where they culminated.