Is our greatest opportunity to fight evil found in slowing down our lives? Haste kills more than hate according to the data! Will you read more about this shocking discovery I made recently which has helped me slow down my driving and relax my "I am so busy and important" lifestyle? By being in a hurry or haste, I mean from pushing one place to another, shoving, rushing, speeding, asking people to "Get out of my way," rushing and slamming out the door, not taking the time to love and pay attention to the world around us, and generally any activity where the future is more important than what we are doing now.
After researching the number of deaths in war, I've discovered that more of us actually die from actions resulting from some kind of being in a hurry than from all the hate combined. For example, nearly all car accidents are avoidable if at least one driver involved had slowed down before the accident happened. How many of our suicides and poisoning deaths from drugs and alcohol would be averted if everyone involved had time to just sit down and have honest conversations? This is a tough subject for many of us including me because as soon as we see another way to live is possible, then we have to forgive ourselves for how we lived before which is why I take the time to share about it here and in the YouTube video below.
The crazy thing is that most of us get away with being in a hurry on a daily basis and see no evil in actions like doing 10 mph or 15 km/h over the speed limit. How many of us blast through each day stressed out at work only to get home and self medicate with alcohol, food, or medication and become oblivious to our families watching TV, using social media (except Steemit), and playing video games most nights? While we are so busy talking about war crimes committed 70 years ago and serial killers old enough to be our parents, how easy is it to dismiss how many near misses we have had driving where we almost killed a pedestrian or a bike rider?
I'll show you the data and I'll explain the story more and share experience of my own life.
Read this post or watch the original video from YouTube of this 129th episode of Happier People Podcast to find out more!
Thank you very much to @gmichelbkk for converting the transcription of the YouTube video from GoTranscript into this beautiful post for Steemit, which is much faster to read than the video and has all of the highlights in screenshots!
Hurrying vs. World War Two
I googled the number of deaths in World War Two, which is the greatest military conflict in human history. Over 60 million people were killed by all the countries participating and all the atrocities committed within the war, including things like the Holocaust and dropping bombs all over cities to hit factories, but then which also ends up killing tons of civilians.
The US, the country I'm from and live in, dropped all kinds of fire bombs, nuclear bombs and killed lots of the people that died in World War Two along with all the other participants.
I've studied World War Two a lot in my life, in history classes, and I've heard so many things about war. What I've never heard was this little statistic, 1.3 million people die in car crashes every single year.
That has been a trend since World War Two ended, as we have continued to get more and more cars.
On average, thousands of people die every single day in car accidents with millions more every year injured or disabled. It doesn't care if you are old or young, there is no discrimination in car accidents except whether you are on the road or not. This happens to little babies, a grandma and grandpa, or teenagers.
There was a girl I went to high school with, and she died running into a tree right next to where I lived. She was only 16 years old. I would suggest that nearly every car crash happens because at least one, if not multiple drivers are all in a hurry. I've never seen a car crash before where people were peacefully driving slowly or in the speed limit, paying attention, and then someone wrecked.
It requires someone to be in a hurry, or not paying attention as the result of being in a hurry, like trying to do too many things at once. Looking down at a phone while driving is being in a hurry, it is haste, it is running too fast. You could simply do the phone when you were stopped or at another time.
In the case of the girl that died by my house, she was changing a CD in her car apparently, which could not wait until she stopped at a traffic light. She went to change that CD in her car, drove over the median, ran into a tree and died.
Aren't people who have died in war just as dead as those who have died in a car accident?
Why is it we're in such a hurry?
Where are we going?
It's not like this is something I'm immune to because I've been one of those drivers who has been in a hurry most of the time I've driven.
I was worst when I was a police officer because I actually got given permission, under certain circumstances at work, to be in a hurry going somewhere. In certain situations, when there was a call, I could throw my lights on and siren on, and I could drive however fast I thought I could make it there safe. If that meant going 100 or 120 miles an hour sometimes, which is around 200 kilometers an hour, then why not?
Where are so many of us hoping to go in a hurry?
I used to be driving like this, you would find me going over the speed limit, in this big hurry. You'd ask, "Where is this guy in his Toyota Corolla going? As he's blasting in and out of traffic, exceeding the speed limit, tailgating other people, slamming on his brakes, flooring the gas when a green light comes on. Where is he going?"
Have you had someone you've seen driving who was in this huge hurry?
Yesterday, a car nearly killed my whole family as it was in a hurry blasting through a yield sign, cutting in and out of traffic. The car swerved and pulled over in the median and stopped, nearly hitting us again after it had almost hit us at a yield sign. The glamorous thing, sarcastically, is to find out where people are going when they're in such a hurry.
If you followed me when I was in a hurry, you'd find me getting out of my car at places that you couldn't imagine I needed to be in a hurry to. I used to be in a hurry to go to the gym. I'd go to LA Fitness tearing down the street, in and out of cars and what was I in a hurry for?
I didn't want to be late for my personal training session.
That's right, I risked other people's lives driving in this huge hurry so that I could do what?
Go to my personal training session.
I used to get off work as a police officer, seven or so years ago, at 6:30 and occasionally, I wouldn't have bought any liquor to have at home so I could go relax and stop being in a hurry. Man, you want to see someone drive crazy? I'd get going 30 or 40 miles an hour over the speed limit to try to make it to the liquor store before it closed just minutes after I'd get off my shift.
I would drive on long road trips and I'd speed the whole time. I'd get pulled over going 20 plus miles an hour over the speed limit. I'd show my badge and even some of the officers would said, "You're going so fast that I was about to arrest you if you were going even a mile faster than you were."
I was in a hurry before becoming a police officer and after becoming a police officer. When I was a young man, I would frequently drive as fast as I could get away with.
I drove once from Virginia to South Carolina and I found a car that was going as fast as it could get away with. I followed that car the whole time, often going over 100 miles an hour, cutting in and out of traffic, knowing or thinking that if that car tripped some police officer up ahead, then I could simply slow down and I'd get away with speeding the whole time.
My first traffic stop, I was on my way to Blockbuster to rent a DVD for the night, which I ended up being able to do even after getting stopped by a police officer going 15 miles an hour over the speed limit when I barely knew how to drive to go rent a DVD before the store closed.
Why are we in such a hurry to get somewhere?
Why don't we just leave earlier instead of rushing and hurrying?
Why don't we just do a few less things during the day?
The Disney race
One of the most insane places I've seen this, is going to Disney. I went to Disney World yesterday and the day before with my family. You might think, "Okay, everyone is on vacation here, right?" If you've been there several times, you're probably snickering right now.
If you've never been there before, you might think, "Okay, this is a vacation spot. Everything is purely for fun." In other words, there's no money, you don't get anything out of riding one more ride or any purpose for being in a hurry. If you've never been to Disney World or a theme park or some vacation place, you might imagine there's absolutely no reason you'd want to be in a hurry, right?
You're going somewhere just to relax. You've spent thousands of dollars to take your family to Disney. It must just purely be relaxing, right?
Why is it that when I go to Disney at least, I see people in some of the biggest hurries of their lives?
If you want to see some bad driving, some people in a hurry going 20, 30, 40 miles over the speed limit just like I've driven lots of my life, just get off the interstate and drive on into Disney.
There are cars tailgating you, passing on the road, honking and cutting you off. That's the same thing when you get in the parking lot, people pull in there, they're pushing, shoving, cutting in front of you, trying to get on the tram to take you in. Then there are really long lines to get in. Everyone is annoyed standing there waiting to get through, eyes rolling, people sweating, and then you get in the park.
Then, people are like off, it's like they just shot a gun in the air and there's a race that started.
"Oh my God, we got to go over. We got to get to this ride. Then we've got a reservation for lunch. Then we got to get over to this store, we'll get a look around the gift shops. Then we have six more rides to go on. Then it's time for dinner, and then we need to get back to our hotel."
"Then, we need to get in bed because we have to get up at six o'clock in the morning the next day and hurry over. Then, we're going to see Star Wars and we're going to go do the Stars Wars thing and see Darth Vader."
Oh my God, the stress level at Disney is insane. I'm not immune because I've been one of those people lots of times, all stressed out at Disney.
"Get-get the hell on my way. Come on, I have a fast pass. I got to get here or I'm going to have to wait in line for this ride. I drove an hour and a half here just so I can ride this ride."
I've been that person.
A lady ran into my ankle with a stroller at Hollywood Studios a few years ago and this is the whole Disney experience. Now, yes, I realize not every single person is in a hurry at Disney.
The whole crowds of people though are aggravated, frustrated, and trying to get somewhere in a hurry. Then waiting in line, some can't wait for the line to get over. God forbid, you cut in front of someone. I've seen a shouting match in line at a ride, two women screaming at each other, "You F and B" as all these kids are around. What did they do? I never even saw anything, I don't think they knew each other.
There was some issue of perhaps someone cutting or getting ahead a little bit in the line. It's insane and this is on vacation. How do you have any hope of not being in a hurry, when you have to go work? When you have to do things like drop the kids off at school. If you're five minutes late, you get a nasty note from the teacher, "Your child was tardy."
You get to work late and your boss says, "What were you doing this morning? Where are you at? I'm docking your pay."
I know because I used to race to work, to any job I had. I would race to work to get in time rather than being late. When I was a police officer, they were pretty nasty if you got into work late for that. They demanded you be in 30 minutes early before you even started getting paid and often you had to stay late without pay either.
I would hurry into that job, but other jobs, they weren't nasty at all. If I came in 10 or 20 minutes, an hour late, no one would often say anything at all. Yet, I'd still rush in.
Being stopped by the police on my way to an AA meeting
The last time I got stopped, I was on the way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I ran a stop sign and I was driving at 10 or so over the speed limit. I got stopped at least for the 12th or 15th time, at 29 or 30 years old.
The police officer asked, "Where were you going?"
It finally hit me how stupid what I was doing was. I told him the truth, I said that I was going to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and I realized that it sounded really stupid. It made no difference at all when I showed up for that, no one cared if I walked in five minutes late or five minutes early because it was a volunteer thing.
It's completely stupid to be in a hurry doing something like that, where you're trying to become a better person. Here you are, spinning and getting pulled over on the way there.
Finally, that's when I started slowing down after that, when I realized that if I could be on the way to something as completely pointless as trying to hurry to be on time for a recovery meeting, where either I should have left earlier or I might as well have just accepted, "Look you're going to be a few minutes late, just drive the speed limits. Stop at stop signs and red lights. Just don't risk anyone's life, so that you might get to a meeting a minute or two earlier, where it makes no difference if you do or not."
The whole point of these meetings is that people won't judge you. We're trying to be better and not judge each other, if we get in a minute or two late. Yet, I've found even in realizing consciously how much of a hurry I'm in driving usually, that doesn't disappear in the rest of my life.
I've done really good over the last couple years since I've got stopped on my way to "something really important," then only to fess up that it was completely stupid to run a stop sign on the way there. I've done much better at slowing down my driving. I remember like 10 years ago, one of my classmates said he'd started slowing down his driving. I thought that was the most insane thing in the world.
Why would you slow down?
Why spend an extra minute on the road than you have to be?
What a complete waste of time driving, right?
Hurrying through the day
I found it's much more challenging in other areas of my life where there aren't overt consequences. If I go on the road and speed, I can very well kill someone. Speeding on the highway or running a stop sign, I could literally kill anyone. It doesn't matter if the person is old, young, of any gender or race, it is completely indiscriminate. If you're in a car and I'm racing along, I could easily run into you and kill you driving.
What about for things where it's not so obvious?
What about for things I'm hurrying like through my business?
I teach classes, make videos and blog posts, and this is my business.
Why am I hurrying my way through it?
I've noticed lots of days where I'm stressed out at the end of the day because I'm trying to cram every single activity I can in during the day. There are days where I've filmed an hour to two hours of HD video. I've uploaded all of them. I've done all kinds of other things throughout the day related to it like answering questions, checking on various things like the price of DASH online. I rush through the whole day. I "accomplish" all these things.
Then, I try to do it again the next day. I'm racing through my business as if I'm going to get somewhere.
Where am I trying to go?
Where are we collectively trying to go by being in such a hurry all the time?
Why is it worth getting into all these nasty fights?
You might say, "Okay. Well, it's just car crashes."
Maybe not if you don't believe the car crash saying specifically.
What about all the people who died from heart attacks, from strokes, who overeat?
People who poisoned themselves to death with alcohol and drugs, who get all these stress related problems?
If you would get down to the core of it, it all comes from being in a hurry.
After all, why do you need to use things like alcohol and drugs?
Why do you need to get into a state of depression to start with?
As an alcoholic, I liked to drink because it forced me to slow down for a little while, although that was mostly initially. After years of drinking my body started to adjust and was able to essentially function fairly normally, even after having a large amounts of alcohol.
Why is it that I needed to use something to slow down?
Why is it that I couldn't seem for most of my adult life to slow down without essentially cheating by using some substance like alcohol?
I would be doing things like working out so hard that my body could not stand any more of it. I would be working out fat as hell, I'd get on the elliptical and just get my heart rate at 180 or 190 beats per minute. For what purpose? I was not trying to get in the Olympics. I would get on the elliptical and absolutely work my whole body out. Now, if I was not drinking, that was one of my other strategies to relax.
I'd work my body so hard physically, that then I would have very little energy to even think or be in a hurry after that. Now, that didn't stop me from trying as I often would get into some argument with someone on the way home. I ran a guy off the road one day driving home from the gym because he was in a hurry and I was in a hurry. I played a little game of chicken with him.
I went to change lanes and he wouldn't move. I just changed right into his lane, I was willing to wreck my car right there if he didn't get out of the way and he knew that. I've been sick with being in a hurry as bad as anyone for most of my life.
Life is not worth living in a hurry
Today, I realize that life's not worth living in a hurry. If I'm rushing around through my life, it's worth looking at where I am going. If you've seen the movie "Blink" with Adam Sandler, this does a great job of highlighting how we rush through our lives and highlighting where we're going.
He has a remote control that allows him to essentially fast forward things in the movie. He ends up fast forwarding almost all the things in his life like driving to work and even eventually fast forwarding things like sex. As soon as he starts getting interested, he fast forwards and it is over already like two minutes later.
He's fast forwarded through some of the best things in his life and all of a sudden he just keeps fast-forwarding. Before he knows what's happened, he's on his deathbed wondering where his whole life went.
"Where did my life go? Here I am on my deathbed and I hurried through the whole damn thing."
Then, he wishes to have a chance again to not hurry through each part of his life.
I'm amazed today how powerful the habit is of being in a hurry.
What do I have to believe in order to be in a hurry?
I have to believe that what I'm doing is important. Therefore, if what I'm doing is important, it's probably more important than what other people have to do. Therefore, when I'm driving, why not speed? Whatever I'm doing is more important than other people, even when this is a completely insane belief. Yet, I do the same thing today. I hurry through a lot of what you might call the mundane tasks in life.
As soon as I walk in the bathroom I'm in a hurry, "Let's get this over with. Can't wait to get out of the bathroom and get on to something that's actually important."
I hurry by things like my dogs. My dogs throw themselves on the ground and ask to be petted and I walk by like, "I don't have time for that. I have important stuff to do. I've got to film a podcast, that's so important." I hurry right by that.
It's easy to get in a hurry. I often hurry through my whole day, then I get to the end of the day and wonder, "Where did it go?" Here's another beautiful day with my wife and daughter, my family, my friends and my work online, and I rushed to the end of it.
I have a spreadsheet listing over 3,000 videos I've made in the last two and a half years. That's something someone in a hurry accomplishes. Often, I'm in such a hurry that I don't stop to slow down and think, "Do I even need to do what I'm doing?"
I've made lots of video classes that were just completely filmed in a hurry, then no one even liked watching them.
Did I even need to make that?
The worst things to do is to be in a hurry doing something that doesn't need to be done.
It seems that the majority of things we do in a hurry, in terms of our work and our lives, are things that we don't even need to do to start with.
We rush to get to a job that we hate.
Then, we hurry through the day to get back home to families we complain about all day at our jobs.
Then, we hurry to get in bed and get to sleep at night.
Finally, we're in bed and we hurry to fall asleep to get to the next day and do it all over again.
We wake up and we are in a hurry to get out of bed and get ready for the day. We're in a hurry to get the kids to school, lest they get there a little bit late and we get scorned, "Oh God, your kids are tardy again."
Then, we hurry to get to work and we do the same thing. We hurry to get to the weekend, "Oh my God, it's Monday. I need to get on with it. I wish it'd be Friday already."
We hurry to get to the weekend, and then when it's the weekend, we hurry to get to the next thing.
We hurry to get to the next place to hang out, the next restaurant.
We hurry to get the meal that's in front of us down into our stomach, so we can be full.
Then we hurry to leave the scene after we've stuffed our faces so much we're disgusting.
We hurry to get out of there, so no one can take a look at us and see how nasty we feel after that.
We hurry to get back home and watch some TV show where we can just zone out and look at how messed up other people's lives are, and not think about how messed up our own life is.
Then we hurry to find someone to make a life with.
We hurry to find someone to get married to.
We hurry to have children, and then we hurry to raise those children.
"Come on, you got to learn how to do this. Come on, you've got to get to school. Come on, you need to learn, learn, learn. You got to do better than this. Quick, learn how to put your shoes on. Learn how to say this. No, that's not how you say it."
We hurry to raise our children, and then we hurry to get our lives occupied and have some meaning after our children are left.
Then, we hurry to get to retirement.
Then, when we're retired, we're in a hurry to find something to make our life meaningful again.
Then, we're on our deathbeds thinking, "You know what? Maybe I shouldn't have hurried through this whole life. Well, fine, let's just hurry through this too. I wish I just get into the hospice and get this over with and die."
What I've discovered is that it is the real place I'm hurrying to. I'm hurrying towards death. It is the real destination for my hurrying, that's where I really am trying to go with my hurrying. I'm trying to get in a hurry to be on my deathbed and die, and move on.
Now, that's a bit crazy, isn't it?
That defeats the whole purpose of why I'm here. The purpose of me being here is to help, to do something useful, to learn how to love, to learn a lesson and to be of service.
Now, if I hurry through all of that, guess what?
I get to do it again and again.
You could almost look at it like it's this horrible prison sentence.
You hurry through one life, only to get another one just like it.
You hurry to get to your deathbed.
Then, you get 9 months off, hopefully, in the womb, and you hurry to be born and do it all over again.
Maybe as a child you get a few years where you don't have to hurry, where the adults around you are so crazy that you don't quite understand what they're doing or what's going on.
They rush from one place to another.
They hurry you in from one outfit to another, from one place to another.
If I want to make a contribution to this world, I have to simply stop being in such a hurry.
I'm working on this and the first step is to realize that I am in a hurry, that most everything I do in my life is with this intent to rush through it, to blast through it, to get to the end.
How many people do you see with businesses online?
You can feel that they're in a hurry.
"Come on, I want to get your email. I want to sell you something. I want to make some money, and then get rid of you. Go on, I don't want you anymore. Let's make room for the next person."
They're in a hurry to get the money out of their business.
Then, to go hurry and do something else.
My motivation to make this podcast
I'm grateful today that I had a little more patience than usual in setting this podcast up and thinking about what might be worth saying.
I did this in a little bit less of a hurry than I usually do, which might have motivated you, "God, let me turn this up to one and a half or two speed. Jerry's talking a whole lot faster because I'm in a hurry to get to the end of this podcast." 😀
I know because I've turned books on to like two speed, I even tried three speed on some books. I want to hurry up and get to the end of the class and learn it, and then be able to use it.
I was inspired to make this because I was listening to I think it was "The Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible" and from many indigenous people's point of view our hurrying as a western culture, US and anywhere else that's been infected with the western culture, looks bizarre.
Often, these indigenous people look at us and wonder, "Where are all these white people in such a hurry to go? They want something, they want something. What do they want? They always want something. They're always in a hurry to do something."
I heard stories of Native Americans who would be put in lines to wait somewhere. Now, if you look at a line at Disney, there are often a lot of people that are uncomfortable, who are annoyed and who want the line to be over with. Apparently, you put a bunch of Native Americans in line and they just stand there just as happy as they would be doing anything else.
Of course, that's a generalization and it's for the purpose of illustrating. I'm sure there are Native Americans who get in a hurry and also that there are white people, like me, who are trying to be patient and just learn how to peacefully exist somewhere without trying to get to the next moment.
Even all this goes into being concerned about an afterlife. The afterlife is a big concern when you're in a hurry to get through this life. When I'm not in a hurry to get through this life, then I'm not so concerned about an afterlife either.
When I enjoy and peacefully exist in this life, I don't need to know or have a specific definition of what the afterlife's going to be like because then the life I'm in is enough.
Thank you very much for enjoying this 129th episode today of Happier People Podcast where I've tried to share my experiences and this shocking revelation I've got on the fact or my opinion at least, that hurrying actually kills more people than World War Two.
Especially, if you include all the different symptoms of hurrying: driving, car accidents, stress and heart attacks.
I'm grateful I've had this to share with you today.
I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope to see you again soon.
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Love,
Jerry Banfield