5 Antidotes for Hurry Sickness
Hurry sickness like most undetected diseases is a silent killer. The sobering fact is that hurry sickness could be wrecking havoc in our lives without us even knowing it. Make no mistake about it; hurry sickness is a killer disease. It kills relationships, it kills productivity, it kills perspective and priorities, it kills spontaneity and the joy of the moment and worst of all it kills spirituality. How can that be?
More often than not, hurry sickness forces us to sacrifice the important things in life for those things which seem urgent, but are not as important. Years ago Charles Hummel, in a little booklet by the same title, identified this tendency as the “Tyranny of the Urgent.” Urgency, although a life saver when it is an appropriate response, becomes a tyrant when everyday life suffers from its inflated and incessant demands.
Hurry sickness is therefore defined as “a behavior pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness; an overwhelming and continual sense of urgency.” (Dictionary.com)
How do you know if you have hurry sickness? Simply measure your life against the definition. If you frequently feel rushed, anxious, overwhelmed and/or are always battling a sense of urgency, then you have it. Ouch! I’ve got it! Do you?
The bigger question then becomes, what do we do about it? Having battled this disease most of my life I’ve realized there are no easy answers. I have discovered however that getting older helps. One of the benefits of aging is that a person begins to gain some perspective that everything isn’t as urgent as it once seemed. And the really important things in life have a way of coming into to focus more readily. For this I am thankful.
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