Reclaiming Slowness in a World of Urgency

We live in a culture that equates speed with value, fast responses, quick solutions, and rapid growth. Efficiency has become a virtue unto itself, often at the expense of depth, nuance, and meaningful connection. Yet some of life's most essential processes cannot be rushed: healing, creativity, understanding, transformation.

Throughout my poetry, I've found myself returning to images of natural growth - how a seed must first crack open in darkness before it can reach toward the light, how forests regenerate after a fire through processes that unfold across decades, and how rivers carve canyons through patient persistence rather than forceful haste.

One poem captures this tension: "They say time is money, / but what of the wealth / in a moment fully inhabited? / What currency can purchase / the luminous ordinary — / morning light on familiar faces, / the taste of summer berries, / a conversation without glancing at the clock?"

The more I write, the more I recognize that good writing cannot be forced or hurried. It requires fallow periods, times of apparent unproductivity that are actually essential for integration and gestation. The same is true for our internal development - some insights can only arrive in their own time, some wounds heal at a pace beyond our control, some questions need to be lived before they can be answered.

I've been learning to recognize the difference between the authentic rhythm of my creative process and the externally imposed cadence of productivity culture. When I honor the former, my work has roots; when I succumb to the latter, I produce what one poem calls "hothouse flowers— / impressive but fragile, / quick to bloom, / quick to wither."

This isn't about glorifying slowness for its own sake or dismissing the value of decisive action when it's needed. Rather, it's about recalibrating our relationship with time to honor the actual requirements of meaningful work and genuine connection. Some things can indeed be optimized and accelerated; others require the full measure of their natural unfolding.

Our bodies know this wisdom intimately. We cannot command ourselves to fall asleep faster when tired or digest food more quickly after a meal. We cannot force grief to complete itself by a deadline or insist that trust rebuild itself overnight after betrayal. As one poem acknowledges: "The heart keeps its own calendar, / oblivious to our scheduling."

What I'm learning is that there is power in discernment, knowing when to move quickly and when to allow process its due course. There is wisdom in recognizing that some forms of progress are invisible to the measuring eye, happening beneath the surface in ways that will only later become evident. There is courage in standing firm against the collective pressure to rush what requires patience.

If you find yourself caught in the exhausting cycle of perpetual urgency, I invite you to experiment with what might emerge if you allowed certain aspects of your life their natural rhythm. What depth might become accessible if you resisted the reflex to fill silence, to solve immediately, to know conclusively? What quality might infuse your work and relationships if you moved at the pace of presence rather than productivity?

In the words that have become a touchstone in my own practice of reclaiming time: "There is a speed / at which presence becomes possible. / Find it."