Rushing can be defined as any instance in which we move faster than we need to. As soon as we begin to rush, whether hurried by an overbearing parent to the dinner table or harried into a career choice by an artificial deadline of our own making, we become estranged from ourselves; that is, a hollow forms between our inner self and the self that’s rushing through the world. Once divided from our sense of aliveness, we lose contact with that kinetic border called wonder. This estrangement from our aliveness is the beginning of alienation. And though there are many ways to feed our estrangement, rushing out of congruence—out of being where we are—is as sure a path as any to the netherworld of half-living.

If I learned anything from having cancer, it’s that unless there’s a physical need—such as needing air to breathe or needing to stop a wound from bleeding—there’s no reason to rush, no matter the level of urgency being showered on us by others.

Each of us is driving our own train, and the trick is not to go so fast that everything blurs and yet to go steadily enough that we get somewhere; though there are times when not going at all is tantamount to arriving.

So who will live your life? Who will you dare entrust that to? Even when the Japanese poet Kikaku says,

A blind child

guided by his mother,

admires the cherry blossoms

the child does not relinquish the chance to admire the blossoms directly. It seems the deepest love can guide or even lead, but then removes itself as if it had never been there at all. Such a mother barely touches her blind child’s arm. Now the child can’t tell if the path to the garden was their mother’s wind-like guidance or the nudging of their own intuition. This is the gift of love.

Yet too often, we impose by giving what we so sorely need or never received and, then, the child is made a puppet of the giver’s pain. When giving like this, we’re driven by our estrangement, hiding from the world while trying to expose ourselves through others.