Rush
by Maurisha Nicole on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 at 9:34am
A month or so ago I read an essay entitled, " Social Time: The Heartbeat of Culture. It was a personal essay written about an experience, or cultural encounter if you will, that the writer , Robert Levine had while in Brazil as a visiting Professor of Psychology. On the very first day of lecture, Levine all of a sudden finds himself in a hurry to get to class with very little time to spare before class begins. Frantic and breathless, Levine arrives to class only to find that he is the only one there. But shortly thereafter, his brazilian students start to casually stroll in without a look of worry on any of their faces. Levine says, ". All of the latecomers wore a smile that I came, later, to enjoy. I won't recap the whole essay, however, I will say that the comparisons made between Americans and what our perception of punctuality is, and the Brazilians "lack there of", reveals a lot about our differences in culture and ways of thinking.
Almost everyday of my life is the same routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm usually on the freeway by 715 to beat traffic and be in class by 810, which ends at 925 and allows me just enough time to speed walk to my car and be to work by 10, 1015 if I have trouble finding parking! Its so funny how one little interference in our "routines" can throw off the rest of our day.
Today my class was cancelled. And all of a sudden my routine had be "messed with"! Now I had to find something to do that would kill the time I would have otherwise spent in class. " I'll go to the writing lab", I thought. " And then, I'll go get coffee since I was in such a rush this morning and didn't have time to make any before I left home. So I did all of this with 40 minutes left to spare! As I was walking to my car, I noticed my breathing. Then I looked down and noticed how fast my feet were moving. I stopped. Right at that moment I stopped! I asked myself, why are you in such a hurry Maurisha? And it hit me! We are so programmed into our "routines" that even when life allows an alternative, we ignore it because we are afraid of change! ( Yes I got all that from my feet lol)
I decided today, that in everything I do from this day on, I will take my time. - Slow down, you might miss something--- Maurisha Nicole
Almost everyday of my life is the same routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm usually on the freeway by 715 to beat traffic and be in class by 810, which ends at 925 and allows me just enough time to speed walk to my car and be to work by 10, 1015 if I have trouble finding parking! Its so funny how one little interference in our "routines" can throw off the rest of our day.
Today my class was cancelled. And all of a sudden my routine had be "messed with"! Now I had to find something to do that would kill the time I would have otherwise spent in class. " I'll go to the writing lab", I thought. " And then, I'll go get coffee since I was in such a rush this morning and didn't have time to make any before I left home. So I did all of this with 40 minutes left to spare! As I was walking to my car, I noticed my breathing. Then I looked down and noticed how fast my feet were moving. I stopped. Right at that moment I stopped! I asked myself, why are you in such a hurry Maurisha? And it hit me! We are so programmed into our "routines" that even when life allows an alternative, we ignore it because we are afraid of change! ( Yes I got all that from my feet lol)
I decided today, that in everything I do from this day on, I will take my time. - Slow down, you might miss something--- Maurisha Nicole
