How fast is fast enough?

Have you noticed just how fast everything has got? Post a picture on Facebook and within seconds friends are liking and commenting. So how fast could really be said to be fast enough for us?

I was flying back from England recently with EasyJet.  In the past queuing has involved a scrum for good seats for all but the very young and Speedy-boarders. Despite allocated seating now this throng of passengers around the gate persists. Strange because we all had a seat number. Why rush? I tried to resist the urge surge forward when called but eventually joined the pushing.

We reached the stairway to the tarmac in an orderly queue. I realised that the couple in front of me were elderly and struggling a little with the stairs. My heart rate now back to normal I paused at the top to give them space to make their way down. It was then I felt the first nudge in my back. Then a second followed by an insistent third clearly trying to push me on.

The craziness of this situation suddenly struck me; EasyJet don’t require passengers to board whilst the airplane is taxiing so we were not going to miss the flight. The seats were allocated so any chance at scoring the ‘magic’ seat were also not possible; so why the rush?

In truth the need to be fast is often pointless and actually part of a wider context of living that no longer values patience. We want everything now and in trying to get it we find ourselves walking over or through others, physically but also emotionally. We may not know why we must move quickly; we just feel we must. In that, we miss others and their needs.

This blog first appeared in the September Gallery Magazine as the Therapy Jersey column pg 67