What's the rush?

A multinational company I used to work for had this very annoying work culture. Everything was URGENT. Every single project, every single request, every single email was urgent. People wanted you to settle their stuff first because it was 'urgent'. It didn't matter what else you had on your plate at the time.

They had several levels of urgency for all matters. There was the most common which was URGENT... then there was VERY URGENT. And the last one, that cropped up right before I started looking for a new job was SUPER URGENT!

Everybody was running here and there, going to meetings, presentations, briefings, and of course the occasional sessions of getting your ass chewed off by your boss for not getting more done.

So, what's the rush? Why do we have to cram as much as possible into our lives. I believe it's our need for a false sense of accomplishment.

We feel important when we can take 5 meetings and 2 presentations at work, drive like a madman on the way home, grab a quick dinner, have a quick chat with a loved one, have a quicky, read the newspaper, continue doing work and catch 3 hours of sleep.

Now let's break down that day's accomplishments that made you the most important person in the world...

5 Meetings - Probably meetings that were needed to discuss how to fix problems arose because you never took the time to properly plan your work

2 Presentations - You didn't pay attention to them. You'll probably screw up the projects because you obviously don't have the time to get clarification on the 'small details'

Drive like a madman - you probably pissed somebody off and should be thankful that person didn't pull out a gun and blow your head off

Quick dinner - doubt if it was a balanced meal

Quick chat - so much for having a meaningful conversation

Quicky - are you sure the other person is satisfied? Were you satisfied? Two minutes? Are you kidding me?

Read the newspaper - just reading the headlines, huh?

Continue with work - can't concentrate can you?

Three hours of sleep - the headache you're gonna get when you try to wake up for work the next morning would only have been worth it if you had had a wild night... but you didn't...

So let's slow things down... let's do less things but actually spend time doing it. Let's enjoy life... because in the end, nobody actually wins the rat race. Might as well take a stroll and enjoy the view.