We live in a fast-forward world. Do you ever feel rushed and yet always behind? Exceed the speed limit when you drive? Do you get frustrated when you have to wait in line? Do you go to bed wound up, have trouble falling asleep, and then wake up tired? When you drive, do you tailgate others, flash your lights, pass often, complain, and gesture at other drivers? Do you skip meals or hurry through them? Do you multi-task frequently? Do you feel as though there just isn’t enough time?
If any of these questions can be answered “yes” by you, it’s worth paying attention to this state of affairs. The intensity of your pace of life may be hastening your aging and ultimate demise. And you don’t enjoy the time you have, to boot.
There are many techniques for dealing with this situation.
One place to start is to notice your breathing. Do you feel as though you can’t get a deep enough breath? Or do you sigh often? This may mean you are breathing from your chest (shallowly) and not from your diaphragm. When you catch yourself in a sigh, check in and see and see if your thoughts are racing, your pace of movement is fast.
When you notice yourself doing these things, take a moment to stop. For just a few seconds or moments, stop whatever you are doing and ask yourself, “What am I thinking? How am I feeling at this moment?” Taking this moment allows your mind to catch up with your body. You can make decisions more consciously and will regain a sense of balance and control.
A more extensive approach to changing the pace of your life is to identify what’s most important to you. We often treat events as though they are monumental when, in the long run, they diminish in importance. One way to take stock is to imagine a worst-case scenario as vividly as you can, allowing yourself to think and feel as though this happened. If this event happened to you, ask yourself these questions:
- What in your life would change?
- How would this affect your daily living?
- What lasting lessons would you learn?
You can now use this information to prioritize what’s most important to you, and revisit this when you find yourself being pulled back into the rush.
One last action you can take is to re-evaluate your personal standards for mundane chores. There are many tasks that must be done. However, we often do things out of guilt, obligation, or persnicketiness. Perhaps you grew up in a home where every Saturday was cleaning day, when all things had to be scrubbed, dusted, and vacuumed to a sheen. Are you still doing this? Are you certain it’s essential? Looking back from your death bed, will you regret having spent the time? Not everything needs to be done 100%; it just needs to be done. Set your own standards.
We don’t know how much time each of us has. But we can make conscious decisions about how we use this present moment. We can set goals with an eye toward living fully as much as possible by rejecting the pressure to keep pace with the world.
Do you ever feel rushed and yet always behind? I think that’s the bulk of my job description, actually.
And although I don’t react to ‘compressed time’ by exhibiting any (other than multi-tasking) of the examples you’ve provided, feeling rushed and always behind is one of the reasons I’m giving serious consideration to a job change in the next year or so. It’s not healthy to be in ‘crisis mode’ 8-12 hours a day, 49 weeks a year, and my remaining time really shouldn’t be largely allocated to decompressing.
You’ve provided some great advice re: taking stock. I shall revisit the advice as needed. Thanks!
Most welcome, Jen. 🙂 I’ll be writing more on time and stress, as well as other modern trends that have hijacked our lives. Stay tuned!
I definitely don’t take the time to do this kind of reflection often enough.
I suppose I rationalize it by saying, “I ENJOY the feeling of being in constant ‘GO’ mode. I like knowing all the pots are boiling rapidly.”
Type A? Not sure. I used to be able to answer that with a definite “no way.” But now I’m not so sure.
Hmmm… Lately whenever someone asks me, “How are you doing,” I tend to give either a token, “OK. How are you?” or a disturbingly MORE OFTEN token, “Moving fast! Lots of stuff happening. Rush. Rush. Rush, ya know.”
That’s probably not a good thing, you think? Never really thought about this. Maybe I’m compensating for something or another… “They’ll think I’m a busy, productive person if I act busy and under pressure.”
Of course I AM busy and I AM under pressure, so it’s not much of an act. I guess the question is, do I NEED to by so busy? hmmmm..
Maybe I ought to take a moment on some mornings… no… some EVENINGS (morning is my most effective time of the day, for goodness sakes) to do this exercise.
I’ll go do it now before I go to bed.
I believe this (an escalating sense of stress) is happening to most people in modern society. There are any number of associated symptoms and manifestations of a lifestyle that increasingly promotes ill health–physical and mental. The poor are terrified of survival; the rich of maintaining their wealth; and the middle class, of maintaining their lifestyles and concepts of the lifestyle they’re entitled to.
To me, it seems obvious that the major source of these changes is overpopulation coupled, perhaps, with inappropriate beliefs about how things work. More people on the planet causes increased competition and the belief (valid or not) that resources are limited and one, therefore, has to work harder with greater risk, to get their fair share of the pie.
How much stress results from faulty beliefs (e.g., lack of resources) and how much results from physical phenomenon, is a matter for debate.
Personally, I’ve been looking for a job for almost a year (after being layed off when returning from disability for breast cancer–nice). For the first time in my life, using the same techniques that have always worked fine in the past, cannot for the life of me find a job. (I’m in my mid-50s.)
At the same time, I’ve learned there’s been an influx of young professionals (22-30) into the area (DC) in the last five or so years. Am I now competing with cheaper people with more up-to-date training/knowledge? Or, even without this group, are there simply more people with whom I’m now in competition? Is it, perhaps, a matter of more population that cannot be supported by the existing job market? Sure looks like it to me.
For many years, I’ve joked that when one has the time (which I do), they don’t have the money to do anything, and when they have the money, they don’t have the time.
I do believe that a growing population (overgrowing, IMHO) accounts for most of the stress that exhibits itself in so many forms. However, I also think that inappropriate beliefs (e.g., lack of abundance) certainly add to the problem.