Slow

In Hong Kong or any metropolitan city, the rush hour is iconic and points to energy, money, hard work, vibrancy... Yet innovation, art, beauty, value, design... cannot be hurried. Creating and change feel agonizingly slow and pointless.

My years of financial drought may be nearing an end. The temptation will be to rush around doing as much as possible as if I were in a race to achieve the most in the shortest time. This will work if the methods for progress, innovation and value just involved doing the same things over and over again. But we all know life does not stay the same. 

I learned how to change as a lifestyle and rediscovered that "Work hard. Take chances. Be very bold." is not about hurrying around. That was a movie line that I took with me as I entered adulthood at the end of my high-school years thinking I would face a life of exploration and adventure.

Unlike many of my peers, I am not interested in an empire, a castle or respect. I just want to create, discover and enjoy who I am. I lost that for a while thinking I needed to please some other people and institutions which caused me to impatience, to anxiety, to hopelessness.

I am not born to be a cog (nor even the top-dog-cog) of a machine, or to rush around protecting it. I am not done changing, growing, creating, learning, loving, enjoying that involves slowing down as much as having to adapt quickly when opportunities come. 

The parable of hare and tortoise is not an either-or. We need to slow down to prepare for the sprint needed to seize "quantum leap" moments our lives. If we are running around for the hell of it, we can miss the opportunities that beckon.