Where are you rushing to—your funeral?

On Kenyan roads, many drivers seem to be in the grip of a particular madness: the need to get there quicker.

On any given highway on any given day, there will be cars overtaking in the most dangerous situations. They will come blazing out past sharp bends. They will squeeze back into their lane with just a second to spare. They will run onto the pedestrian path to get ahead from the wrong side, scattering bystanders and raising clouds of dust.

These drivers often have family members in their vehicles, including young children. With a tiny misjudgment here or there, they could kill not only themselves but any innocents in their paths. But they don’t care.

The other day, I saw a man in a gleaming SUV screech past a line of cars, only to come face-to-face with an oncoming truck and swing violently back into our lane, missing my car by inches. In the back seat of his own vehicle, two small children watched their father gamble their lives. And for what? So he could sit sooner at the next jam? A few seconds later he was off again, overtaking with no space available.

Where are they rushing to, that it is so important to grab every possible second? That they must get there ahead of all others on the road? Actually, nowhere much! Just a regular destination, like the rest of us. Nothing critical is waiting for them. Nothing is on fire, no-one’s life needs to be saved, livelihoods do not depend on arriving quickly.

We see it on city roads too. Folks who just can’t wait in traffic, who have to overtake and overlap and cause even more jams by clogging up both sides of the road.

What lunacy is this?

Let’s take it off the roads. What about people you meet who are always in a rush? They always need to wake up and get cracking. They always have somewhere else to be. They always need to wrap up and move on. It’s all go-go-go…

Where do human beings think they rush to? Eventually, it’s just to our funerals! There is an intriguing, fascinating, mysterious life given to us. And all we want to do is to get through it, fast?

Isn’t it strange that we are so terrified of death, and yet we live like we’re sprinting to meet it sooner?

What if you walked more slowly through your day, and absorbed the smells, the textures, the voices? What if you listened—really listened— to the person that you’re meeting right now, rather than keeping one eye on the clock and the other on your next task?

In our rush to do more, we notice less. We miss the old man at the corner with his shy wave. The jacaranda blossoms that only last a few days. The chance to hear a child’s gurgling sentence, and a cat’s mewed enquiry. What if the real meaning of existence isn’t in achieving more—but in noticing more?

Somewhere along the way, we made ‘busy’ a status symbol. If you’re not frantically swiping, dashing, ticking off to-do lists—you must be lazy, or worse, unimportant. But who decided that spinning faster equals living better? That your worth lies in how breathless you are?

A life well-lived isn’t about how many things you crammed in. It’s about how deeply you lived the few things that mattered. But I’d better let you go. I know you have so much to do…

 

THE SIGNAL IN THE NOISE

Don’t live like you’re late for your own burial. Pause. Notice. Live the life you already have.

 

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