Life In The Slow Lane

Moving isn’t for the faint of heart. Moving five times in two years… that could make you clinically insane. Which is why on my fifth move, I was quite over it and just wanted to get the process over as quickly as possible. I had someone come in and clean my new house in order to save me time, so when I began to bring in the kitchen boxes I was especially careful to not dirty up the fresh space.

One of the first boxes I unpacked contained my kitchen canisters, full of sugar, flour and coffee. The two smaller containers were light and easily lifted out of the box by their lids and sat nicely on the counter where I perched them. However, as I began to grab the largest of the three, heavy and filled to the lid with flour, I considered whether or not it was a smart decision to lift it by the lid as I had the other two. Undeterred by the “this isn’t a good idea” voice in my head, I continued on my merry way in order to save time and get unpacked in an efficient manner.

Right about the time I got the bottom of the canister out of the box, and before I could get my other hand underneath it, the lid slipped. I grabbed it just in time for the container to crash onto the stovetop, sending a plume of flour into the air like an erupting volcano. The clean stove, counter, floor and vent were all covered in a layer of pulverized grain. My arm, shirt and face were also coated in the white powder making me look like I had just exited from the back room of Studio 69.

The 30 seconds that I was to save by not properly lifting the canister out of the box cost me about 15 minutes of clean up time, a spike in blood pressure and frustration that lasted the rest of the day.

After I’d come down off of my flour high, I contemplated the lesson in this incident. It served as a reminder that constant action isn’t always going to get me where I want to go. Or at least not in an efficient manner. It was, however, an invitation to stand still, pause, and bear witness to what was going on when the incident occurred. If I had done that in the first place, I would be unpacking the next box instead of cleaning up my own mess.

We live in a world where everything and everyone is constantly on the go. The quicker it moves, processes or computes the more accolades we give. But what are we missing out on, really, if we take the time to slow down, pause and reflect? I can tell you from true life experience, we’d have a lot less messes to clean up if we did.