“W
isely, and slow.
They stumble that
run fast.” - Romeo
and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3
Ah, my dear and long suffering
readers, is there no end to the
depth of Shakespeare’s wisdom?
Indeed, the Bard’s Friar Law-
rence had the right idea when he
counseled young Romeo to pause
and think before acting rashly.
While there are certainly times
when haste is appropriate and
even required, most of the time
rushing through life only guaran-
tees that you’ll see little, experi-
ence less, and enjoy none of it.
The 21st century is built almost
entirely on the concept of speed.
From the bewildering pace at
which technology advances to
our rapidly shrinking patience,
our lives have been deeply af-
fected by the idea that slowness
is a negative. Indeed, the word
“slow” is essentially a pejorative
now, indicating that something is
broken, or in some way “subop-
timal,” if you’ll forgive the use of
such a ghastly term.
cies Homo sapiens. Somehow,
we as humans - the same race
who created Handel’s “Messiah”
and spray cheese - have turned
an obsession with busy-ness and
speed into a kind of cultural
fetish. they won’t be able to enjoy until
they retire, and even then, only
if they live that long. I’ve heard
people say they are trying to
build a legacy. Wonderfully
dramatic word, but what does it
mean?
Are we really accomplishing
more when we push ourselves to
work 18 hours a day? Or are we
simply demonstrating a kind of
Pavlovian trigger response to so-
cietal stimulae? “Ring a bell and
we innovate,” such is the mantra
of modern society. The literal definition of the word
“legacy” is: anything handed
down from the past, as from an
ancestor or predecessor. Building
a business or wealth to be able
to hand down to your family is a
great idea in theory, but it suffers
from some very serious flaws.
In the entrepreneurial commu-
nity there are certainly those
bright sparks who will label you
as “lacking the drive to be an
entrepreneur” unless you work
absurd hours at a pace no human
can maintain. Family? What family?
And what are we working so
hard to build? Today, intelligent
and otherwise sane carbon-based
lifeforms are literally killing
themselves to build something
Most workaholics end up be-
coming strangers to their own
families, creating feelings of
resentment and even estrange-
ment. Indeed, some are so task
or goal-oriented (Is there a more
cringe-worthy phrase in the En-
glish language than “goal-orient-
ed?” I think not) that by the time
their “legacy” has been
This obsession with speed is
now rearing its ugly, misshapen
head in the way we live our lives.
We’ve all made the acquaintance
of humans who simply cannot
slow down. Always working,
always go-go-go, these otherwise
hard working and productive
folks are also impatient and un-
able (or sometimes unwilling) to
pause long enough to enjoy life.
This constantly moving, work-
aho