I always find myself sighing: everyone around me is running too fast. My coworker Mark became a senior manager at thirty-two. The neighbor’s kid got into Stanford. My cousin just opened her third company. Every time I open social media, every single post reminds me that I seem to be falling behind.
So I started pushing harder. Staying late even after my work was done, just so my boss would notice me. If someone else got one certification, I got two. “I filled weekends that should have been for rest with online courses. If I just kept running, I thought the person I was meant to become would eventually catch up to me. But I didn’t catch up to anyone. I ended up exhausting myself.
That weekend, I went to Home Depot. I meant to buy a flower pot. Instead, I sat for a long time on a bench in the tool section. Next to me sat a retired old man, waiting for someone to mix his paint. His cart had only one packet of flower seeds and a small bag of fertilizer. He was in no rush. He saw me checking work emails on my phone and suddenly said, “You look like you’re in a rush.” I gave a bitter smile and said I felt like I could never keep up. He nodded and pointed at the flower seeds in his cart. “These take sixty days to bloom. If I dug them up every day to check, they wouldn’t grow any faster. Water them when they need water. Give them sun when they need sun. When the day comes, they’ll bloom.”
That night I drove home. I didn’t go straight inside. I said to myself: you’re allowed to slow down. You’re not behind. You’re just walking your own path. And your path is different from everyone else’s.
For a long time, I thought life was a race. Slow meant eliminated. But it wasn’t until that weekend, on that bench at Home Depot, that I truly understood. Life isn’t a track. There’s no fixed schedule. I don’t have to tear myself apart just because of someone else’s progress. I still look at my social feed. I still feel anxious sometimes. But I don’t force myself to match anyone else’s speed anymore. I do what needs to be done. What can’t be done can wait until tomorrow. Some weekends, I do nothing at all. Just sit in the backyard and watch the flowers I bought from Home Depot slowly open.
Fast has its advantages; slow has its purpose. My own rhythm is that suits me best.
