Not Immune

Well, it happened. I caught one of the diseases that I have been trying to avoid. I thought I was taking all of the right precautions and protecting myself but I guess not. I didn’t realize that it was so contagious. America is a dangerous place. I have seen a few symptoms developing, but yesterday it spiked out of control.

I was standing in the kitchen when I first realized what was happening. It was lunch time and I was very hungry. I had placed some food in the microwave for 2 minutes. I paced across the floor – and checked the timer, thinking to myself that it was surely almost done. Amazed, I discovered that only thirty seconds had gone by. I stood and stared at the timer slowly ticking down.

I was getting irritated…..frustrated….. I was hungry. What was taking so long? And then it hit me – I have “hurry sickness.” I have seen it all over America. . . people rushing from here to there; talking, but glancing at their watch; talking, talking, talking on the phone – in the line at the store, in the car, at the gym, at a restaurant; texting, always texting; too many customers in the stores and not enough workers; lives lived at a frantic pace!

We arrived back in the US exhausted from jetlag and the emotional toll Ebola had taken on us. We were glad for the mental break, slow to re-enter a society that was again foreign to us. Much of what we saw were people rushing/frantic/hurried = with no margin in their lives and no boundaries. It was distressing to us on many levels. Readjusting to a fast-paced society was culture shock to us. People didn’t seem grateful for the incredible blessings in their lives – restaurants (everywhere), more stores than you can count on your fingers, medical services at their fingertips, SO many amazing conveniences like electricity, dishwashers, hot running water, and microwaves.

Why weren’t people more relaxed? Why weren’t they more grateful? Kind of made me mad actually. Didn’t they realize that so many people go without these things? Didn’t they realize how amazing a microwave was?

But slowly, like a frog in a pot of heating water, I could feel myself getting infected. It has been a battle for us – trying to put margin in our lives. We use a variety of ways to accomplish this: making sure we get enough sleep by shutting off the computer and TV early, allowing extra time to get to appointments, trying not to schedule too many things in a day/week (this is still a hard one for me as I often overestimate how much time and energy I will have), making sure that we schedule time for the important things.

I know we are all busy – so many demands. But I also see, in my own life, time wasters that I get sucked into – things that don’t really matter. It is all about choices and being grateful and the practice of slowing down – both physically and mentally!

And so I am – working on reminding myself to be grateful. Slowing down. I realize that occasionally things like schedules are out of my control – but often, they are not. Many times, I feel frantic and hurried because of choices I have made. And it is NOT a place that I want to live – either physically or mentally. So I am working on the cure for this “hurry sickness” and praying that it gives me a life-time immunity!