The Hurry Within

We often tell ourselves that the restlessness we feel is a product of our circumstances—that if we could just change the scenery, find the right vocation, or reach the next milestone, we would finally arrive at a place of peace. We imagine that "the hurry" is something happening to us, rather than something living in us. But what happens when you finally reach the destination you dreamed of, only to find that the passenger you tried to leave behind has been sitting in the backseat the whole time?

For some time now, an idea has been circling—coming closer, inviting consideration. I’ve finally begun to pay attention.

Let me give you some back story.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I stumbled into a well-paying, high-stress, steep-learning-curve corporate life in the tech industry. I had not studied anything computer-related in college, other than to play hours of Tetris. But the company that hired me, QuickStart Technologies, was looking for people who had presentation and people skills; they figured they could teach us the technical stuff.

The final interview was to give a presentation on an arcane (and now obsolete) minutia of tech called the PIF Editor. I had no idea what it was. Zero. Even after reading the preparation materials, I still had no idea what it did or why I should care. But I figured I might as well do the interview.

To their credit, it was a brilliant strategy: see if someone could present a complex and arcane idea in a way that was compelling and engaging, even if they had no idea what they were talking about. I got the job. Looking back, most of what came out of my mouth during that interview was nonsense.

I spent the final years of the millennium at QuickStart, enduring a learning curve so steep it felt like trying to walk straight uphill. To stay ahead of my students, who were paying good money for my ‘expertise,’ I spent practically every waking hour preparing for the next day’s lessons. 

When friends reminded me how lucky I was to have such a great job—the responsibility, the income—I would respond that it didn’t really help to make a lot of money if you never had any time to spend it. By the four-year mark, I finally began therapy to unravel the mess and stress my "successful corporate life" had become.

Slowly, I gained a small foothold on my life again. And, in so doing, I made the decision to leave it. Not to leave my life, but to leave the life I had been living. To leave the hustle, the hurry, and the hectic. I wanted to "St. Francis" it—to step aside and do something more beautiful.

So, I quit. I moved across the country. I began full-time graduate studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. I thought I had "solved" the problem. I thought I had made the one great transition of my life, as though the rest of the path would be smooth sailing.

Except for one slight problem. I didn’t know it at the time, but the hurry I carried inside? I took it with me.

At first, the change of externals kept the hurry at bay. I went to seminary, then to a fellowship in Scotland, then began a freelance writing and photography business, then moved to Baja and led a spiritual community for a decade, then rescued a horse, then began a horseback riding business. There was enough change, and enough movement, to keep the hurry hidden.

It was there, in the thick of this new ranch life, that I began to realize it. It wasn't an all-at-once realization; it was a slow, gradual revealing. I began to feel a familiar sensation. Like Vianne in the movie Chocolat, I felt the breath of the north wind beginning to blow.

How could this be? My life could not look more different than it did two decades ago. And yet, there was that familiar feeling.

The hurry within.

In my corporate life, it was obvious: traffic, LA freeways, burning the candle at both ends. But in my new life? My commute was a short walk through a nature preserve to a ranch where the horses called to me and the dogs jostled for affection. I was riding my horse along the beach at sunset, taking people on bucket-list experiences. My time was my own. My life was one most people would dream of.

And yet, on one particular day, on one of those sunset rides, it struck me full force. Look at this, I thought. Look at me. Here I am in this beautiful setting, riding in what is many people’s dream, and I am grumpy, exhausted, and complaining.

It was a wake-up call.

Did I need to "burn it all down" again? I wasn't sure I wanted to. I actually liked my new life. I had roots. I didn't want to start over, perhaps because I was now in my fifth decade instead of my second, but also because I had finally found something worth keeping.

So why that familiar feeling? Why the north wind blowing?

At first, it troubled me. I thought it was evidence that my new life was a "wrong turn." But this time around, my life didn't afford high-priced therapy, so I simply sat with the feeling. I resisted the urge to burn it all down—mostly because I didn't think my horses would appreciate it.

What I came to realize was that I hadn’t left the hurry back at QuickStart—the hurry had simply been laying dormant for twenty years. In the first decade of that transition, the constant international travel probably kept it at bay; I was too exhausted to give it energy. But a decade into a "rooted" life, it was as though it finally felt the freedom to come to the surface again.

The hurry within doesn't have a destination. It doesn't have a goal. It isn't trying to get anywhere. It is just in a hurry because it cannot tolerate standing still. It has to move, to achieve, to pursue. It is voracious.

But it is also not the final word.

When it showed up this time, though I wasn’t expecting it, I found that the roots I had planted gave me a grounding I didn't have the last time around. The hurry couldn't just take everything by storm.

In the sitting and the observing, I also found that the hurry is not the only game in town. It is just a voice—the "inner critic" as Neal Allen calls it or the "gremlins" as Tania Kindersley refers to it. It wants to keep us moving so that we never have the chance to stop and ask: Why?

Now that I have identified it, I have found that the hurry has lost its power. Now it is less of a taskmaster and more of an energetic young puppy waiting for someone to throw a stick.

The hurry within says that if you stop paying attention to it, you will surely die. But actually, by stepping aside and doing something more beautiful, you finally create the life you knew was possible all along.