DON'T GET THROUGH LIFE FAST

REGARDING HENRY
By Henrylito D. Tacio


What do these words have one thing in common: quick, speedy, sudden, fleeting, rapid, swift, hasty, high-speed, prompt, expeditious, and immediate. They all mean the same thing.



Those words came into my mind while I was reading a story forwarded to me by a friend via e-mail. It happened I presumed in the United States but it can also happen here. Please read it slowly (at a snail's pace, so to speak) and contemplate:



A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door!



He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?"



The young boy was apologetic. "Please, mister, please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do," he pleaded. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop..." Now, with tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. "It's my brother," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up."



Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay.



"Thank you and may God bless you," the grateful child told the stranger. Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: "Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!"



Today, we live in a world that everything seems to happen in a wink of an eye. We want things to be done quickly. We want our food instant. We like our meeting to end immediately. Movies have to be short and fast. Speeches have to be prompt and also entertaining. Matthew Arnold was right when he said, "This strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims."



Perhaps the words of George Eliot should remind us all: "The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone." Robert Updegraff also recommends, "To get all there is out of living, we must employ our time wisely, never being in too much of a hurry to stop and sip life, but never losing our sense of the enormous value of a minute."



This haste thing is a creation of man. As one Irish proverb puts it, "God made time, but man made haste." Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu echoed the same sentiment: "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." A.A. Milne agrees too: "Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday."



Saint Francis de Sales advices: "Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset."



When was the last time you talked with your loved ones? When was the last time you had a heart-to-heart talk with your children? When was the last time you hear the pleadings of your inner self? If you can't recall it now, it's because you were always busy and in a hurry?



Why in a hurry, anyway? I was reminded by the words of C.EM. Joad, who said, "It has been left to our generation to discover that you can move heaven and earth to save five minutes and then not have the faintest idea what to do with them when you have saved them."



Today, God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us (just what happened to young executive). It's your choice to listen or not.



God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way. Read these final words very slowly and let it sink in: If God brings you to it; He will bring you through it.