The choice between walking slow and road rage

Learning to walk slow through a snowstorm

Do you ever feel like you’re screwing all of this up?

When I’m driving my car, within my glancing sight of the dashboard, I keep a sticker that says “Walk a Little Slower”, its purpose twofold. It’s not that I’m driving crazy fast speeds, but I can be an impatient driver, and a rule follower to boot. The real crux of the my driving problem is that I hold others to a more rigid standard than I do myself. So when someone merges after the double-white line, or zooms around me only to slam on their brakes, the sticker mantra is a reminder to check myself. Am I annoyed because I’m running late? Well that’s not the other driver’s fault. Is their inability to get in the correct lane before it turns off causing me frustration that they haven’t “gotten with the program” even after all these months? Well, maybe they’re new to town, or back from college and the change happened while they were away, and really, the city didn’t do any of us favors with their poor signage around the change.

So I walk slower into my emotions.

The other function of this sticker is to live out Mary Oliver’s line, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” If I want to be a better writer, if I want to see the places in this world that need care, if I want to connect with Creation, I need to walk a little slower, I need to take it in. I need to remember this.

And it’s this last bit that makes me feel… shame. Now we’re back to the question I originally asked.

Because I catch myself NOT paying attention. And then I get down on myself for squandering chances to pay attention.

The other day, my husband and I were driving home after a hike when we got stuck on a mountain road in a snowstorm. As the line of stopped cars grew and the inches of snow piled up, people were getting out of their cars to understand why we were stopped, if there was a way out, and to grab a selfie. The selfies felt incongruent to the situation but the snow did look magical. But strangers chatted with strangers, took photos for each other, and built snowmen. The situation was a bit dire, and also a bit mystical.

In a very real way, we were forced to stop, and when restarting, to drive a little lot slower.

I can all-to-easily conjure the feelings that getting stuck on a mountain pass in a snowstorm can amp up: anxiety, urgency, and a need to get out of the situation. And maybe that existed in some of the cars in our snowy traffic jam. But when you’ve got nowhere to go and no control over when you might go again, why not watch the falling snow in that meadow down there? Why not catch your breath at the way the sunset splashes across the towering trees.

But what about the times when you do have somewhere to go and control over the manner and timing? How do you manage the tension of paying attention, being astonished, and doing life?

The question feels like it leads me to an answer - pay attention to how you’re doing life! How others are doing in their lives. For me, I need to practice paying attention to the mundane, the routine, as well as the breathtaking mountain-pass-in-a-snowstorm moments.

So, how do you practice walking a little slower in your life?