The Hidden Tyranny of Urgency

This wasn’t learned in theory.

It was learned by being slowed all the way down.

Not through discipline.
Not through strategy.
Not through trying to live better.

But through being gently removed from urgency itself.

I didn’t realise how much of my life had been governed by invisible pressure - the need to respond, to move, to decide, to progress, to keep up.

Nothing dramatic happened.
No crisis.
No collapse.

Just a meal.
Taken slowly.
Fully present.
Unhurried.

And in that slowness, something broke - quietly.

I saw that much of what I had called “drive” was actually fear wearing respectable clothes.
That urgency had been masquerading as responsibility.
That speed had been mistaken for faithfulness.

What lifted wasn’t productivity.
It was weight.

As urgency loosened its grip, something else expanded — appreciation.

The ability to notice.
To taste.
To listen without preparing a response.
To be fully present without needing the moment to lead anywhere else.

Life didn’t become bigger.
It became nearer.

I’ve walked in peace over recent years - even through some extreme outward circumstances.
But what shifted here was something deeper.

Peace no longer had conditions attached to it.
It no longer waited for resolution, clarity, or change.
It became the ground I stand on - not the reward for getting things right.

Since then, life has continued - but at a different pace.
Decisions arrive when they’re ready.
Conversations unfold instead of being managed.
Presence replaces striving.

This isn’t something I’m talking about.
It’s something I’m living.

After many years of being “a certain way,”
after decades of ingrained patterns, habits, and ways of working,
this change didn’t require becoming someone new.

It required letting go.

At 48 years young, I can say this with clarity:
what feels deeply ingrained is not immovable.

This wasn’t an upgrade.
It was a deliverance.

From the hidden tyranny of urgency.