My Morning Cup

As I was driving with my morning cup this morning, traffic was light and I was cruising at 70 while listening to the radio.  I tried as I normally do to call family, but didn't have any luck.  Things were going like any typical day, and then I slammed on my brakes.

I guess my 70 wasn't fast enough today.  A gold Nissan Sentra decided to weave into my lane, and the low and behold I was doing 70 and not faster since the car in front was going 70 as well and there wasn't much room.  This event alone is nothing new.  I drive on the freeway a lot, and people are in a hurry.  I get cut off almost daily, and without fail I see a car going 95-100 during peak traffic time.  Today though, it sorta clicked.

I start slowly in the morning, not because I'm slow waking up, but because I refuse to hurry if I can at all avoid it.  I wake up, and almost regardless of time I eat a relaxed breakfast.  I drink my cup or two of coffee slowly, I shower without being in a hurry, I do shave fast, but I hate to shave.  When I get in my car I should probably rush, cause if I hit bad traffic it could be a problem.  But I need my day to wind up slow.

Some days feel like a marathon, and you don't start a marathon with a sprint.  So I build up, but all this got me thinking this morning.  "Man, people rush."

This can't be a freeway thing, or a city thing, it is like this everywhere.

I was at school with my son, and sure enough as I was walking out to the car two boys in the upper school went sprinting out to the end of the sidewalk.  This was not a casual race, this was a sprint, to the end of the sidewalk...And one boy won. I guess. Then they walked to their car with their mom.  When I was a kid I did this all the time, I'd race to the car, race to the front door, to my room, race eating dinner, eating desert.  But I lived in a competitive house.  Seeing these two boys at my kids school was the start, but I saw it everywhere.  Come to think of it they make expressions for this "Hurry up...and wait"  All day you see people accelerate from red light to red light.   The entertainment business is built on this concept, hurry up and then wait for light, a star, weather, anything really.

I don't get it.

Okay, I understand it, I see the reasoning behind it, but definitely not the logic.  In the end, it seems to me like ultimately we have all lost in this rush.  I think when we as people no longer stop to realize there is a world out there to look at, and cars besides our own little car, our own important job, our own plans, we've really lost our humanity.




Well, at least we rushed to do that.

Life over A cup of Coffee, Black (Trader Joe's Fair Trade Organic Bolivian Blend)