This morning, as I drove to the office, a blue truck came barreling up behind me. It was moving fast, and soon used a turn-only lane to get around me; I was obviously only slowing it down.
Well, a minute later, lo and behold, I roll up behind the same truck at a stoplight. As the light turns green, I see it blow through the intersection. But only a moment later it has to pump its brake as it quickly closed the gap between it and the cars in front of it.
This same pattern of acceleration and braking happened repeatedly at the next few intersections. Eight minutes later, as I turned onto another road, I could still see the truck. In fact, we ended up going through that final intersection at approximately the same time. I was in the turn lane making a right, and it continued at full speed straight ahead.
It was obvious that whoever was driving was in a hurry. And I’m assuming that the repeated slowing down and braking was pretty frustrating for them. But for all the hurry, and all the frustration, they didn’t seem to be actually getting anywhere any faster than the rest of us.
It reminds me of those times in life when we’re in such a hurry to see something happen, and get frustrated whenever there is any delay to our plans. How many times would we end up in approximately the same spot if we had not been in a hurry? And how much self-imposed annoyance and frustration do we experience, all because we’re in such a rush?