I had tons of time to catch my flight and was moseying to my gate.
“Mary!” my sister who was with me exclaimed, “Will you PLEASE hurry up?!”
“But why?” I asked, “I'm not in a hurry.”
Her response boggled my mind: she asked me to act like it anyway.
Thank goodness that I have five sisters so I can hide which one I mean, because her idea to hurry up for no reason was possibly the worst!
Feeling pressed for time can stop us from caring for each other.
In the so-called "Good Samaritan Study," seminary students were told to go give a talk in another building. Some were told they were running late, others were told they'd just make it and others were told they had plenty of time.
On their way to the building, the students encountered someone seemingly having a health emergency but who was really an actor.
10% of students in a hurry stopped to help.
45% of students kinda in a hurry stopped to help.
63% of students not in a hurry stopped to help.
And it didn't make a difference whether the students were asked to talk about job prospects for seminary students or the parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells of a traveler who stopped to help someone in distress. Meaning, …
Feeling pressed for time can have a greater impact on our behavior than our values or what we're thinking.
Yikes.
When sharing my previous tip to
make space for delight, I mentioned that I'd been thinking that life could get magical on a dime mere minutes before taking a detour that led to a most delightful love fest with some baristas.
But had I been rushing, the love fest wouldn't have occurred regardless of what had been occupying my mind.
When you're next feeling pressed for time, consider if your time is truly short or if you've simply fallen pray to the habit of needlessly rushing.
I'm an Ann Arborite who was raised in Nairobi. My sister (not the hurry up one) once joked that she could tell I was a Kenyan at heart because I moved too slowly to be an American. Even then, years before learning about the Good Samaritan Study, I thought about taking my time to be a good thing.
That said, the students in a hurry—those entering a helping profession but who were rushing too much to help—remind me of myself now when I don't want to socialize so that I can be alone to think about helping people socialize!
Sounds like it's time to default to my inner Kenyan again :-)
Mary-Elizabeth
