I think I´ve mentioned this before: I´ve been going through a really busy period at work, and this past week, to be honest, has been more of the same. Sometimes I get frustrated, because I see my day (or my week, or my month) flying past, and I find it difficult to carve out time and energy to make progress on my personal projects. Does this sound familiar?

I feel like I'm living in this kind of paradox where I´m simultaneously moving very fast and very slow: running at full speed in my day-to-day tasks, "playing Tetris with my calendar", like I told a colleague of mine the other day, and being super slow with other tasks I would like to dedicate more "bandwidth" to.

Luckily, the Universe keeps sending me clues and reminders every now and then, for example in the shape of quotes I come across during the week, which I can share with you all and reflect on here.

The first quote talks about going fast; I read it in English, and I loved it. The Spanish translation I found sounded a bit strange to me, so I wrote my own version, I hope it's easy to understand:

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Socrates

In a society where "being super busy" is seen as something positive, almost a sign of status, we sometimes forget that rushing not only leaves us physically and mentally exhausted, it also forces us to stay superficial. In order to be able to do a good job at a task requiring certain depth (reflection, creativity, focus...) we need to slow down, cut down the number of tasks and dedicate longer periods of time to them, without distractions. If we link this to the Eisenhower matrix we touched on a few weeks ago, the key is to leave more space for strategic tasks (important but not urgent) that help us to feel fulfilled and make progress towards our goals (starting with proper self-care), instead of spending so much time "putting out fires" (paying attention to whatever urgent things happen to be in front of us, whether they're important or not).

The second quote talks about going slowly, and you can say it louder, but not clearer:

Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

Chines proverb

We live in a society when immediacy rules. We're used to being able to get everything quickly, and we don't like waiting, so we have less and less patience, which can be problematic when it comes to setting medium/long term goals and working towards them. It's easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves with others who have already achieved it, or who are further along the same path.

Here's where I think it's important to remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare, which shows us how consistency and perseverance are much more important than speed. Moreover, depending on the type of "race" (or, now that I think about it, probably in all of them), crossing the finish line too soon is not such a good idea, because the learning and growth happen along the way, as one gets more and more experience.

So it´s OK to go slowly, it may even be best option. But what about standing still? My interpretation is that it´s a warning for us not to rest on our laurels, as the hare did in the story. Because when we stop walking towards where we want to go, we stagnate, we stop learning, and even if it seems like we´re staying in the same place, the reality is that we´re lagging behind.

So, what about you? Do you feel a bit like a hare at the moment? Or maybe a tortoise?