Imagine yourself on a peaceful holiday, about to leave the house for a trip, but suddenly you think, "What if an important work issue comes up?" With that thought, you end up taking your laptop along. During the journey, you keep checking your phone as if it’s an instinct ingrained deep within humans.
Although no one forces or threatens us, we feel it’s important, necessary, and must be done immediately. This stems from 'Urgency Culture,' which makes us believe that quickly finishing something means success is near. In reality, we may be confusing 'busyness' with 'progress.'
Dr. Ira Bedzow points out that the most dangerous trap of urgency culture is losing the ability to distinguish between 'urgent' and 'important' matters. Urgent tasks come with alerts and clear deadlines, like sudden extra work. Important things, such as rest, long-term life planning, or spending time with loved ones, rarely demand attention. Ultimately, we sacrifice the most important parts of life to constantly extinguish daily fires for others until we’re drained.
Over time, our focus gradually shifts away from what truly matters in life, as we become skilled at handling urgent issues but procrastinate on important ones. After a while, this leads to burnout and the feeling of living life at high speed without moving closer to our goals.
Moreover, this culture restricts our 'freedom' because when we become used to merely reacting to immediate demands, we lose the skill to design our own lives. New opportunities and choices shrink until only mandatory daily tasks remain, making it difficult to control or change our lives.
Four Ways to Survive in a World Where Everything Is 'Urgent'
Living well isn’t just about rushing to respond to everything on time but choosing actions that support becoming the person we want to be. This requires reflection, but 'urgency' often leaves no space for that. To reclaim life, here are ways to survive urgency culture.
1. Create 'empty space' to pause and think: The first step is to give yourself time to decide. Set aside time for reflection, not just head-down doing. Pausing before responding helps you see the bigger picture more clearly.
2. Prioritize: Deadlines and responsibilities remain necessary, but don’t treat everything as equally urgent or consider work more important than your own health.
3. Dare to 'say no' to set life boundaries: To live well, you must learn to say no to protect personal time. Start simply by setting offline periods or avoiding phone checks to reconnect with calm, those around you, and other aspects of life.
4. Schedule 'important' matters even if not urgent: Don’t wait for important issues to become crises before acting. Plan and allocate time for things that affect your long-term life, like exercise, rest, or self-development, before daily urgencies consume and neglect them.
Ultimately, slowing down life’s pace doesn’t mean defeat or falling behind the world; it means slowing to reflect and reclaim your power to be the 'owner' of your own life.
References:
Urgency Culture Is Destroying Our Ability to Live Well. Psychology Today. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-well-lived/202603/urgency-culture-is-destroying-our-ability-to-live-well]