post more, hurry less.

My grandma was always telling me to post more photos to Facebook.

Well, my mom would tell me on behalf of her. “You need to post more photos,” she’d chide. “Your grandma is always asking what you’re up to, and why you never post anything.”

“Sure,” I’d reply. “I’ll post something soon.”

But I rarely did. I just didn’t see the point. I’d see my grandma again, and posting photos to Facebook is…kind of embarrassing?

Then I moved to LA, and I didn’t know it then, but I’d only see my grandma one more time before she would pass away. I posted one picture on Facebook, and my grandma commented right away.

“BeUtiful” she said.

I should have done more things just to make her happy. I should have called more and spent more time playing games over decaf lattes. I should have paused my too-fast, too-busy world every now and then and just sat across from her.

Since she passed away, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I should have done differently, and how I’m treating the people in my life now. Am I sending them birthday cards? Calling just because?

This morning I listened to a sermon from John Mark Comer titled “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” Hurry, Comer argues, is the number one threat to our spiritual life. It’s not just simply good for our emotional health to eliminate hurry, it’s necessary to have a spiritually healthy and fulfilling life. If you don’t keep your hurry in check, it damages your relationship with God, others, and yourself.

Since I listened to the sermon, these questions keep rolling around in my head: am I willing to set aside the things in my life that claim to be THE priority — my career, my reputation, my writing — to really, actually, care for the people in my life? To do things that would make them feel close to me, even if it’s inconvenient?

Like so many people, I’m a regular subscriber to the “hustle until you die” mentality. I have to constantly be working, and if I’m not sprinting toward a goal that I’ve put on myself, I’m a lazy piece of shit and deserve all of the medium articles that argue why millennials are the worst generation. It’s an insane way to live.

Somehow, no matter how many come to Jesus moments I have, I find myself on the race track again, frustrated and mad and so angry that I’m sprinting through my life but clueless on how to just stop running.

But sometimes, when I slow down enough to hear myself think, I remember my sweet grandma, who never cared what job I had or how many connections I made. The few times that I sat across from her, the only thing she cared about was that I was there. I was her granddaughter, and that was enough for her. I would give anything: my job, my time, my apartment, to be able to spend more time with her. To play one more game of cribbage. To drink one more decaf latte.

And there lies the great mirage — I do all of these things to fill an expectation of my life that I think will make me happy, but what actually makes me happy is spending time with people who don’t expect any of those things from me. The thing that makes me alive isn’t passing another benchmark, but slow nights full of playing cribbage and drinking hot chocolate with people I love.

I don’t really know how I’m going to slow down, but I know I’m in a rush to eliminate hurry.