Fast and furious people
IN today’s Gospel, Jesus invites the apostles to “come away to some lonely place all by themselves and rest a while” (Mk 6:31).
Always proactive, Jesus knows that after their successful ministry, the apostles might have become so involved in their work that they would try doing more and more in less and less time. He wants them to avoid one deadly human affliction — the hurry sickness.
This is one disease that many of us, restless members of a dumbed-down, workaholic society also have. So, for us, Jesus’ words are not just an invitation but an urgent command.
Indeed, many of us are becoming a people who are always in a hurry. We work harder and longer because we are plagued by a constant sense of being late. So we try to achieve much in a short time. We rush against the clock and tend to multitask. This gives us the feeling that we are accomplishing much, but that’s not true. For, unlike computers that are programmed to multitask, our mind cannot focus on two things at the same time.
Why do millions of people patronize “eat-all-you-can” restaurants? This bargain buffet mentality is actually another manifestation of multitasking. By gorging ourselves with food, we think we have eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner simultaneously. Hurry sickness makes us equate pleasure with excess.
Addicted to speed, any sign of delay and trivial disappointments easily upset those of us afflicted with hurry sickness. When we encounter an unexpected obstacle or problem, we explode in anger and vent our ire on others. When driving, we are constantly in high gear, changing lanes to beat the traffic, and cutting off other cars to get ahead, only to get mad when we get stuck in front of the red light, just like the other cars we tried to overtake. “Fast and Furious” aptly describes us.
Hurry sickness creates the illusion that speed can annihilate distance. But, as one writer puts it: “To wish to be everywhere at once is to be nowhere all the time.” It’s the same with cell phone addicts who want to be “switched on” and “connected” with everyone 24/7. They don’t really close the gap between them and others. Rather, they open themselves to endless distractions. Worse, they begin to suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) or experience NOMO (panic that sets in when one has no mobile phone, a signal, or battery).
If we are always in a hurry, we tend to neglect the presence of significant people in our life. We get bored too easily at conversations. Our lame excuse is: “I have no time.” Which is a lie because all of us have 24 hours every day. If we have no time to decide what is truly important to us, other people will make that decision for us.
Truth is, we have time, lots of it, but many of us have lost track of our priorities. Without a right sense of priorities, our life is in a constant state of rush, and everything and everyone becomes a blur.
Carl Jung writes: “Hurry is not of
the devil; hurry IS the devil.” Overcoming this condition is deceptively simple. Jesus’ invitation to rest does not mean doing nothing. It means slowing down to rearrange our priorities. Rest is recreation, something that “re-creates” us, causes us to see life differently and be refreshed by that change.