It Seemed Important

A few weeks back, I was in a hurry, rushing from one meeting to another at a different location. On my way to the car park, I ran into an old friend in the lobby of my building. The last time we met was over two years ago. “Hey, it’s great running into you. But sorry, I need to move- I am in a rush to get to my next meeting,” I said as I hustled to get to my car, unwilling to spend even a couple of minutes chatting.

A few days later, my friend reconnected with me on my phone, and his first comment to me was – ” You were rushing somewhere when we bumped into each other the other day. I hope you had a good meeting. It seemed important.”

My friend’s comment was like a sucker punch. I couldn’t recall which meeting I was rushing for when I bumped into him. It was a blank in my head. If it were really as important as my friend thought it was, looking at my behavior, I would have remembered.

I had a realization at that moment. Almost everything that seems urgent and critical in the present is never so, in retrospect. One doesn’t have to hustle all the time.