The constant feeling of urgency

I was waiting for the water to boil, and a package arrived which I wanted to open, and my phone buzzed with a new message from someone I didn’t want to meet, and I was throwing my hiking shoes in the washing machine worrying that they might not survive... Standing in the kitchen, I started to hurry. I tensed up, trying to get things ‘out of the way’. My breathing got quicker, my movements less smooth, and I nearly knocked my waiting mug over. And worst of all: my brain started to buzz, trying to be quicker, more effective, and just get everything done.

And then I stopped. And took a very-very slow breath.

I’m familiar with this sense of urgency. Like I had to solve every single problem, do every waiting chore, manifest all my plans, all at once. ‘It should have been done by now.’ And under all these thoughts, there is the justification: if I’m done, I can stop. I can rest. But I never do. There is always a new thing to turn to.

The problem is not the to-do list, the problem is this sense of urgency itself. This is how I used to practice. Not giving myself the time to ‘figure it out’. Pressing myself to go quicker, learn quicker, being impatient with my lips, with my fingers. This was my base-line functioning, with tense muscles, shallow breath, and a racing heart.

So I’m standing in the kitchen, and tell myself, that my package is not going anywhere. The water is going to boil soon, I have no power to make that quicker, and by worrying, I won’t save my sneakers if they are doomed to die. The person can wait, and I can even send them a polite reply that I’m not available. It doesn’t have to happen now.

What needs to happen now, is a slow breath, and a gentle focus on one thing. And spend as much time on it, as it needs. It will be my tea. I might even enjoy it.