"Slow Motion is Better than No Motion"

Aaah, the mind of 13/14 year olds.  One of my students said this as he painfully handed over one of his papers to me.  I sat there, watching the paper move at a glacial pace....waiting and feeling a bit like a parent of an uncomplying 2 year old....and it just popped out of his mouth, unprovoked:

"Slow motion is better than no motion"

I looked at him quizzically, wondering if he was fully aware of what just happened passed his lips, and he repeated himself very matter-of-fact-ly, as though he were giving me driving directions or restating what he'd had for lunch the day before.  I nodded, going over the quote in my head and just replied, "Huh."  He must have thought I still didn't understand because he insisted "Well, it's true!" to which I laughed because I was already convinced of that fact and found his insistence of the matter rather endearing.


And it is.  It's quite true.  "Slow motion is better than no motion".  If it isn't making sense to you immediately, take a moment to think about it.  I think especially today, we far too often think that if something can't be done immediately it's not worth our time, or we give up as a result of the need for patience.  Or, similarly, we become frustrated, annoyed, perturbed, bothered, etc by tasks that we feel should be accomplished quickly and aren't. (After all, isn't that what cell phones are for?  So that you can respond to my every whim the INSTANT I need something from you?)  Even something like goals, that are almost by definition "long term", can appear daunting and impossible because we do not see how we can accomplish them by tomorrow.  So, instead, we give up or say "I'll do it later" because we feel it's just better to not bother than to start something we can't finish (now).  But maybe like my student suggested today, slow motion - even if that means the act of beginning a task or long-term goal - is better than deciding against it altogether.  Sometimes those long-term timelines aren't fully within our control.  After all, we can't control the future we can only try to prepare ourselves as best as possible.  So, again, maybe it's better to start the ball rolling, even if it seems to only cover inches instead of miles, than to leave it gathering dust because we don't see the immediate point / reward.  


Now, you just need to give yourself a little push . . . .