Rush! Hurry! Urgent! And a couple hundred other words to tell us to get moving. The dictionary is full of them, and so are each one of us. But why do we seem to be in such a hurry? 

When I was a young man at my first out-of-college job at The Des Moines Register, I would debate whether to take I-235 or Grand Avenue to work each morning from my apartment in West Des Moines to downtown. That was like debating between a punch in the kidney or a kick in the face. Neither was appealing. And neither was predictable. But what was predicable was that I would wait till the last minute to leave for work and then drive in a panic to avoid being late. It wasn’t a nice way to start the day. I eventually learned that if I left for work 30 minutes earlier, I could avoid the traffic, get to work with a smile on my face, and actually get a head start on my tasks. What a concept! 

I remember having the same debate — and stress — on the way home from work. Cranking out a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD on my car stereo likely didn’t lessen my stress levels. As a young, single guy in an apartment in the early 1990s, what was I in a hurry for? To play a game of darts with my roommates? To get to 7 Flags for a workout? To join friends at Clive After Five?

Many years later, when I first became acquainted with my friend and CITYVIEW columnist Joe Weeg, we met at our office in Des Moines. I joined him in the conference room with my yellow pad and a pen. He immediately started laughing. “I remember rushing from one meeting to another, taking notes on those yellow pads,” he told me. The retired Polk County prosecutor then said, “Now all I rush for is another cup of coffee.”

Retirement certainly helps many people to avoid being in a hurry — but not everyone. I am convinced that some people simply choose to be in hurry. Always.

A Georgian proverb says, “He who is in a hurry always arrives late.” There is a simple truth in that Georgian message. There is also a simple solution that I learned the hard way: start earlier. 

Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707