Is Life Really Just A High-Speed Chase?
At the same time 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff was trying to lift her airplane in the air, another pilot at the Cheyenne airport - facing the same terrible weather conditions - decided not to fly. The commercial pilot and his 19 passengers are alive today.
Jessica died because she and her dad were in a rush. In a rush to fly across the country before Jessica’s 8th birthday so that she could be the youngest child ever to do it. Many now play the blame game. Oh, those pushy New Age parents for encouraging their daughter to fly. Oh, the media for hyping Jessica’s journey. Oh, the government for not banning this activity.
One other culprit might be this age we live in. We expect everything faster, everything now. We complain if our flights are delayed. We run yellow lights. We e-mail because the post office is too slow. We stomp the fax machine when it goes too slowly. Hurry up!
Train companies are trying to figure out better ways to keep autos from running barriers because drivers can’t wait for trains to pass. Speed limits were recently hiked up on our nation’s interstates. All the way to Seattle at 70 mph! We put call-waiting on our phones and sail through television channels.
We are so caught up in this swirl of speed that no one questions the exasperation we show while waiting. In grocery lines, we sigh with impatience when the clerk is too slow. We flash dirty looks at drivers going 30, when driving 35 will get us to our destinations one minute sooner.
Hurry up! From plane crashes to heart attacks, this attitude is killing us. Investigators looking into the crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown are exploring whether the pilots felt undue pressure to deliver their VIP guests. In a recent study, University of Western Ontario researchers asked volunteers to play a computer game programmed to speed up until everyone made errors. Blood pressures soared. Researchers followed the stressed-out volunteers for two years after the experiment. Those whose blood pressure spiked highest during the game showed signs of heart disease.
The obvious solution is for people to slow down. And there are some voices out there encouraging this. Praying slows you down. Meditation, too. Turning off the phone helps. As does walking, napping, sitting around with friends and talking.
People sometimes only slow down when their bodies rebel. Journalist Susan Skog interviewed 29 prominent women about their spiritual beliefs. The women’s lives are filled with work and love. In her book “Embracing Our Essence: Spiritual Conversations with Prominent Women” Skog says most achieved this balance after a physical illness or injury forced them to slow down. The idea for the book came to Skog while she recovered from back surgery. “Unable to walk much, drive, or talk more than a whisper, I retreated from the outside world and ultimately went deep inside.”
She learned patience. It would have saved Jessica’s life. And perhaps the lives of Ron Brown and the others with him. But they were all expected somewhere. They had to go.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board