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culture life

Take Your Time

When we rush we waste. When we take our time with people and things they last longer.


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old_shoes
Photo by scott feldstein

Looking at my shoes this morning I got to thinking about many pairs of shoes I’ve owned over the years. The thought that struck me was how quickly my shoes wore out. More specifically, the fact that how quickly they wore out was proportional to how slowly I put them on. In other words, it was proportional to how carefully I treated them. Any pair of shoes I treated nicely tended to last. As soon as I began to treat the shoes carelessly they would begin to wear out quickly.

I know that sounds elementary but as I thought about it I realized that the same is true of everything. Not just our material possessions but our talents, our relationships, our habits – EVERYTHING.

Look at our world today and how much we value speed. We want to do lots of everything all the time. We are constantly in a hurry. I wonder how much extra work and want we create by rushing through everything. We rush through our jobs, our cars, our relationships, our entertainment. I think that explains why its all so transitory.

It’s time to slow down and treat our lives, relationships, jobs, and possessions as if they matter. If we do so they will all tend to last longer and give us more return on our investment. We may find that by slowing down, being more attentive to fewer activities, and prioritizing our time to focus on people over possessions and over activities. (This should probably include prioritizing the people near us over people further from us as well.)

By David

David is the father of 8 children. When he's not busy with that full time occupation he works as a technology professional. He enjoys discussing big issues with informed people, cooking, gardening, vexillology (flag design), and tinkering.