The
Jurassic Park movies have been all over the television.
Yeah, no news there, as they always seem to be on someplace. But
the past weekend or two, it seems like the original trilogy has
been making some extra back-to-back-to-back appearances.
Near
the end of the second one there’s a scene with a boat approaching
a dock too quickly. It’s not slowing down. Onto the radio and
the plea is made to reduce speed.
And
it is in that phrase that we find a bit of a moment for considering
life, the universe, and everything. I don’t want to make this
a smell the roses and enjoy the ride in a classic saying type
of way. This isn’t about clichés and stereotypes. Instead…
A
while ago, I began taking guitar lessons. And it was a nightmare
at first. Hard enough to get the fingers in the right positions
for different chords. Harder still to actually be able to move
them… and at a pace that the song was being played… from one chord
to another chord.
Seemed
impossible. I felt like instead of becoming absorbed by playing
the music and having fun, song after song was becoming a list
of chords, with the goal being to strike the strings quickly and
get the fingers moving to the next one before the song passed
by it. I was anxious and jittery and nothing felt natural.
(Oh
yeah. And callouses. Building callouses on guitar strings is the
worst.)
Over
a bit of time I began noticing something while watching some brilliant
guitarists perform. Their hands never seemed rushed. There was
a calm, smooth, steady movement. Watch John Denver play “Rocky
Mountain High” and… well… it’s just a mesmerizing thing of beauty.
And
while in many cases it was something that I could practice for
hundreds of years and never be able to duplicate, it eventually
connected with me. I could do it. But I needed to step back instead
of forcing my way forward.
With
practice and practice and more practice, things got better. Eventually
the songs weren’t moving too quickly with me feeling like I was
constantly trying to just keep up. Eventually everything felt
a bit more comfortable.
There’s
a saying that I learned from the book The House of God
by Samuel Shem. It’s actually one of the laws from the book. Simplified,
the first pulse to take in an emergency is your own.
While
you think about that one, I want to wander into the ideas of first
aid. In any emergency situation—and by first aid, we’re talking
about a medical emergency out in the real world, but the concept
can be adjusted to cover virtually any emergency situation—the
first and most important concept is stabilization. Don’t make
things worse.
When
you begin pulling from these thoughts and assembling them into
an overall “reduce your speed” philosophy, you might start appreciating
that I’m not talking about speed at all. And, while I do love
flowers, it not about appreciating life and treasuring the moments
while you can.
Instead,
it’s about the realization that forcing yourself ahead quickly
creates danger. Not necessarily a harmful danger, but a disruptive
and overly challenging danger. What takes less time? Does it really
take less time to do something if you rush to get going and then
have to do it three times because of forgotten items and missed
elements? Or, would the smallest of pauses to just take in the
scene really have hampered a slightly slower approach that only
took one attempt?
This,
therefore, is a challenge to reduce your speed. Not because you’ll
hit the dock. Not because you need to look around as the world
goes by. Both of those are important. Rather, it’s to just take
it all in before you really set off. Get things in place. You
might even find it all seem a bit more productive and gratifying
as a result.