I broke my hand a month ago today, in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I was helping a friend move a truck full of furniture. I opened the back of the truck, and a kitchen counter fell on me. I hadn't packed the truck at its last stop, and the kitchen counter wasn't tied down. I broke the fourth metacarpal bone in my left hand. I had to have surgery to reset the bone, and now I have three titanium screws holding the bone together.
While I don't feel like I'm moving much more slowly as a result of this, typing is a total pain. It's continually annoying or depressing as I'm confronted with things that should be easy to do that aren't: moving boxes, getting something (like my keys) out of my left pocket, putting my shirt on. While, at work, I've been functioning at nearly a normal level, I've been more of a recluse at home. It's a pain to go out. It's a pain to try to work. I'm watching more TV than usual, and playing more videogames (Civilization 4, mostly). I've got a chapter of a book to edit and two lectures to prepare, and I'm in deep procrastination mode. Heal faster, I think... but my real fear is that, once I've got my left hand back, I STILL won't want to catch up on work.
The big lesson of this injury for me is that we really do choose the pace at which we function. When I hurt myself, I was deep in a cycle of doing too much, moving too fast. I felt like life was just accelerating, continually, without a break. Then I hurt myself and I have been doing less. And there hasn't been a disaster. It's been ok. I've been functioning just fine, at a slower speed. So, if it's possible to slow down when you hurt yourself, why isn't it possible to slow down whenever?
Though the pace of the world seems to be increasing, the responsibility is on each of us to choose the pace at which we will function. You are responsible for your own actions. You are responsible for your own emotions. And you are responsible for your speed. Find the speed that works for you and allow it to shift to match the world around you. Become a conoisseur of different rates of motion, thought, and change.
It used to be that our pace was set by the world around us. We were faster than the world, and so we spent a lot of time waiting for things, people, information--like waiting for the FedEx to arrive. Now, in an age of instantaneous access to information and media of all kinds, and on-demand communication with anyone, anywhere, the machines are finally faster than we are. The machines are, finally, waiting for us.
Good. So make 'em wait. You take your time.
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