Have you heard the saying: If you want something done in a hurry, ask a busy person?
I used to be the that busy person. I was barreling ahead at 200km/h, every day, and if you needed something done, I was your guy. Even though I was already doing the work of three people plus adhering to an exhausting exercise regime plus managing a stressful home situation. I prided myself on how much I could get done in a day. I equated my self-worth with how how quickly I answered e-mails and how much more I could load on my already groaning wagon. My identity was that I was a person that did a lot. Too much. I lived in a country where, by sheer force of will, you could get things to move very quickly. And I forced. Myself, colleagues, service-providers. I worked in an industry where things were always urgent. I was white river rafting in waters where everybody was in a mild state of panic on a good day, and in raw terror on the bad days.
Once when I told my (much quieter) friend about my plans for the weekend, she told me she’s exhausted just hearing about it. I didn’t get it – it was all fun stuff… how is that exhausting? It was normal having five events in a row, no rest, and hardly a margin in-between. Just barreling from one thing to the next.
Then I moved to the Iberian Peninsula. Suddenly things were very different.
Time moves differently here. Much, much, much(!!!) slower.
Tomorrow is another day to get something done.
There is a saying when dealing with Spanish government officials: Hoy, no. Mañana. Which translates to: Today, not (happening). Tomorrow. And tomorrow, it’s “hoy”, right, so the inference is that it’s not gonna happen tomorrow either.
It drove me absolutely nuts. It put me into a deep and desperate state of constant anxiety. I simply could not accept that I could not get things done in the same time frame that I used to, that I could not be that super-efficient version of me. Nevermind the language barriers and the different business hours – just the mere fact that I could not, by sheer force of will, push things to their conclusion in the way that I was used to… outrageous! Frustrating to the max! Infuriating! What are these people even doing? How can a country run like this?!?
I think at the bottom of this, for me, was that I could no longer be the version of myself that I thought I needed to be to allowed to exist. The version of me that achieved superhuman feats by means of getting so much done. More than most other people could. The environment of a fast-moving, chaotic river, had changed to a peaceful, quiet lake, and a lake cannot be pushed to be a river.
My utter frustration went on for a fair while. I made my own life hell for myself, and no doubt, for my husband too. Bless him, he was already used to the pace of things, and has a deeply-rooted patience that exudes from him in peaceful ripples. As I raged against the machine, he would just smile and listen and tell me we’d try again tomorrow. That infuriated me even more.
And then one day… I noticed I was changing.
Instead of losing my freaking mind with the slowness with which a process was advancing… I realised that I had just accepted that it was going to take the time it was going to take and that it was OK and nothing to get upset about.
Es lo que hay. That is how it is.
Relax. Breathe. Accept. Chill! Tomorrow is another day!
It was truly a monumental moment for me. It felt like a fundamental part of my personality had changed. I could hardly believe that me! – the most impatient person in the world! – was starting to be patient. Who even was this person? I started teasing my husband about being a little impatient sometimes. Even though I had been consciously trying for at least a decade to cultivate patience, I had still been beset by bouts of wild impatience, but now… it seems that the storm had passed… the river had spat my out on the peaceful lake. And I was totally OK with that.
Confucius say: Infinite Patience Brings Instant Results
😀
Now I am a person that does less.
Now, I am not not your guy if you need something done in a hurry – please find someone else.
Life is soooo much slower. And I am 100% OK with that.
Perhaps it also has to do with getting older, but I really just don’t want to be overloading myself anymore. It also has to do with being happy with what I’ve got. Being happy with peace and quiet and a much simpler life. Now that I do so much less externally, there is much more space for an internal life, which has become so much more important. Chaotic busy-ness has been replaced with a much slower, much happier pace.
It’s made all the difference 🙂
