Very recently, I finished the last day of my first
job--housekeeping at a camp. Three months of mind-numbing routine, and gagging over
putrid toilets. Not what I’d like to choose for a living, but my hat is off to
those who can do it! During my employment at the camp, in addition to the fact
that the very physical work and constant movement were quite tiring, there were
many days when our lack of staff required us to work very quickly and
efficiently. As my fellow workers soon discovered, “quick” is not my middle
name. Nor “efficient”. But I did an excellent job! Though I learned to work
quicker, it wasn’t something that I could just
learn, and getting lost in some sort of mental reverie, I would
forget that I would have to work fast. In fact, moving faster was such an
effort all the time, it was probably the worst part of the job.
What always amazed me when I worked was that everyone else
seemed to be capable of moving so much faster all the time. It was like everyone else’s default speed of movement
was ten times faster than mine. It was incredible! As all things do, this
unfortunate phenomenon caused me to ponder and analyze my existence and place
in this world. Was there something wrong with me?
Being told I am slow is nothing new. I’ve been told that my
whole life. As a kid, I used to take half an hour to go pee as I’d spend that
length of time singing on the toilet. I hesitate to confess that I sometimes
still take that long to pee, but I don’t sing on the toilet anymore. Instead, some
might call it my “thinking throne”. Maybe I should take to singing again. I
also would take hour-long showers on a regular basis, and at school I’d take so
long eating my lunch that I’d completely miss recess. It takes me forever to
start a project and even longer to finish it. Even in college, I was always the last person finishing a test
without fail. Etcetra, etcetra, etcetra. The point is, I’m kind of a slowpoke.
In analyzing this recently, I realized that this is something
that I beat myself up over a lot,
probably because it is something that I get teased or criticized about a lot. In
this modern time-obsessed society, taking your time to do something or get
somewhere is not often recognized as positive in any respect. We want results now, and anyone who takes too long to give
us those results is our enemy, at least in the present moment. It’s almost as
if impatience has somehow become a virtue. People tend to live life like
it’s some sort of race to see who can do the most things in their short life,
as if "living it up" and doing things (physical things) is all that counts in
life, and quantity somehow counts more than quality. I see a lot of people
always moving, but what are they moving towards? Is what they’re doing even
worth it?
In contrast to many people I see around me, for the past
while, I personally have felt like I haven’t been moving anywhere. I watch my
peers around me graduating college or nearing that time. A lot of them are in
romantic relationships and reaching the “getting serious” stage, and some are
engaged or married. They either work or volunteer or travel or immerse
themselves in some sort of hobby or all of the above or do whatever else they
are individually inclined to do. Heck, some just have fun because they can. Whatever
it is that they’re doing, the point is that they’re moving. Somehow, everyone else in the world just seems to do things. For whatever reason, actually
getting off of my butt to do things, even fun things, is incredibly hard for me.
To be honest, it often doesn’t even occur to me that I could be doing something. I’m just too busy analyzing life to live
it. I’m forever an observer or an alien, and forget to take part.
All of this reminds me of the story of “The Tortoise and the
Hare”. I would consider myself to be a tortoise in most respects, and from my
own personal experience, there seem to be a heck of a lot of hares in this part
of the world. Now, I do have my moments of spastic “haredom”, but as a general
rule, I’d consider myself a tortoise. Funny enough, though, I sure am not
winning the race. Within the past three and a half years since graduating from high
school, I’ve become a college drop-out and only got my first job a few months
ago. Can anyone say “bum”? And honestly, I do next to nothing with my life.
With the exception of the past few months, during the hours when I was actually
working, the following has been my life: Think. Play Tetris. Think. Scroll
through my newsfeed on Facebook. Think. Read occasionally. Think. Write
occasionally. Think. Draw occasionally. Think. Then think some more. Basically,
I do a lot of thinking. In my opinion, the fact that I think a lot is a good
thing. The thinking itself is not a waste of time, but when I do nothing else and
don’t actively seek out information, what the heck do I have to think about except
the same things over and over again? And that’s what I do. I sit and think
about the same stuff over, and over, and over again, and instead of living my
life interacting with people, I imagine
that I’m interacting with people in my mind. Any hares that might be reading
this are probably about ready to shoot yourselves at the thought (no pun
intended).
So what am I doing wrong compared to the tortoise in the
story? Well mainly, he didn’t allow himself to be intimidated. He trudged along
confidently at his own pace. Regardless of speed, he was always in motion, always
moving forward. He had a goal, and nothing was going to stop him! When I look
at my own strengths, I definitely have the endurance and determination of a
tortoise. And when I do something, I do it well! I’m just lacking some goals
and the courage to begin. I need to stop comparing myself, because let’s face
it, I’m a slowpoke. You know what, though, I think the world could use a few
people like me. It's time to stop hiding in my shell!
