Slow down to “speed up”

Once upon a time, in his search of the legendary martial arts master, a young man journeyed into the unknown and spent years wandering through valleys and traversing mountains. When he finally found the master, with tears streaming down his face, he knelt before the master and asked “Will you take me as your student? I promise to do everything you ask of me”.

The master replied, “you will stay with me 10 years”. The young man responded “Master, I have spent many years searching for you. I want to go home soon. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?” The teacher thought for a moment, “20 years.”

As a child, I came upon a comic strip of the story above, and while it seemed utter nonsense to my young mind, I found comfort in its seeming absurdity. Years later, the story and I crossed paths some, and though older in age, I was still young in spirit, and found the story amusing and well paired with wine to while away an evening of discussion that was not meant to produce anything serious.

A few months ago, the penny dropped.

Why does this matter?

Before sharing what happened, allow me to share the impact of that event. In the days following, I kept coming back to this question “how did we end-up becoming so addicted to speed, to busi-ness, to action?” The flipside of this question is “how did we end-up vilifying the slow, steady and simple?”