A few months ago, I was assigned to create a choreography for my dance company. It was simple. We were supposed to listen to a song, create a dance that lasts for a minute or so, and record it. Pretty simple. But as the week moved on and the deadline grew closer, I knew I was going to have to speed things up. As I quickly tried to finish the project, I filmed it one last time to see the end results. Now let's just say that puddle of “hard work and determination”... were really just a puddle of tears.
Society has grown attached to the mentality of just getting things done. We have lost the awareness of what's going on around us and only look ahead. Whether it be getting ready for a party, doing your homework, or trying to pop that reappearing pimple, we only look forward to the end result and not the steps it takes to get there. So let us first, listen to the music and see what's going on, second, see how speeding through things play out in the real world, before finally, shining a spotlight on the solution to our dilemma.
Peg Dawson, a psychologist who specializes in children with learning disorders states that “those who tend to rush through their work early experience a drop in performance by the 6th grade.” I like to call this Rushing Roulette, where the negative effects of speeding through things start to take place after a while.
As we have this tendency to urgently get the job done, it may not be the outcome we always expect. Carolyn Gregoire, a senior writer at the Huffington Post explains that when we rush through certain objectives, we create a certain scenario where we want the whole thing to play out, but almost always fail to happen. Such can be said for Nicole Osborne, where after a week of heckling about her age from her parents and three weeks of dating, she expected her boyfriend to propose to her at her favorite place in the world, Disneyland. But here's the thing, after only three weeks of dating, her boyfriend only managed to memorize how she looks like, her name, and her phone number. Ouch
Now rushing through things doesn't have to be a long term dilemma, it can also be short term. Ever see those middle schoolers that have a high fashion IQ and engage in sophisticated conversations? Don't be embarrassed,we've all been through that phase before. Now instead of trying to study hard or trying to catch all 151 Pokémon, they're more interested in going out and how Suzie's relationship ended with Timmy a week ago. You see, this urge of growing up continues to affect our generation, where we worry more about what’s going on and how fast we can do it, over looking at the actual stages it takes to get there.
Now if that thought of children didn't scare you, this should. Over the years, a tactical squad of select individuals have improved their techniques of sabotage with calories and invasion of perso...