No Point In Rushing

Yesterday had the makings of a stressful end-of-the-day. Over the weekend, I realized that my son had a 6:30pm calltime for his basketball game at Bishop O' Dowd in Oakland. That meant that I had to leave the office (in Oakland) early and be on the 4:30pm BART train, in order to pick him up at school before 5:30pm. Not knowing what to expect of the rush hour traffic on 238 & 580, I had to give myself at least 45 minutes to get to O' Dowd.

I had everything all planned out -- arrive home by 5:35, get dressed, leave the house by 5:45, and be at O' Dowd before 6:30pm. Of course, it was all wishful thinking. My son's BFF needed a ride so I told his mom to drop him off at home at 5:45. Then, I needed to take the garbage out on the curb so I don't have to deal with it when we got home since it'll be late by then.

Have you ever had an experience wherein you'd get interrupted while rushing to get something done? Well, that's exactly what happened.

My son's BFF's mom called while I was dressing up to ask for our address since she forgot. About 5 minutes later, she calls back as I was rolling the garbage containers out because she wanted to meet me at the corner gas station instead. By the time I was done and got around to picking up BFF, it was almost 6pm. The great master plan failed. The thought of going through the stretch of Mission Blvd (near Mission HS) all the way to 580 near Chabot College, during rush hour, concerned me a bit. Knowing how slow traffic is on this road made me realize we won't make it on time.

As we traversed Mission, I had an epiphany. A revelation. Heck, why do I need to rush??? We'll get there when we get there. No need to stress. No need to weave in and out of traffic, trying to get around drivers who decided to go on a leisure Sunday drive.

With that change of heart, I eased up on the gas and let things take its natural course. To my surprise, traffic seemed to flow much faster. The next thing I knew, we were entering the gate of Bishop O' Dowd just 5 minutes behind schedule.

I've had numerous experiences similar to this. The more you rush to get somewhere, the longer it takes. You hit all the lights or you end up following a slow moving vehicle on the fast lane, who refuses to move over or let you pass.

So, the next time you're in this situation, take a deep breath, and relax because there is no point in rushing.