Website owner:  James Miller

Causes of slowness

   Slowness.  What causes it?  I can think of the following things:

   1.  A natural inclination to take things slowly, a natural 
   resistance to hurrying.  It is an attitude.  You just don't 
   want to be hurried, you resent it and resist it.  You want to 
   take your time. 

   2.  A propensity toward dreaming, reflection or abstract 
   thinking.  A person can have such a propensity for dreaming or 
   abstract thought that he is perpetually lost in his own inner 
   world from morning til night.  If you put a person like this to 
   some routine task (like picking berries or doing farm chores) 
   he will be in his own world all the time and it will take him 
   twice as long to do the work as it would someone else.  This 
   was true of me when I was a boy.  Today when I am eating (a 
   routine task) I may be eating quietly, occupied in reflective 
   thought, and suddenly I realize I am only half finished while 
   my wife is finished and waiting for me. (To be honest, however, 
   even when we are occupied in conversing as we eat she always 
   finishes much ahead of me.  I just, by habit, eat slowly.  I 
   relax, enjoy it, and don't like to hurry.)

   3. The trait of conscientiousness.  Take my case, for example.  
   I am naturally very conscientious.  Whatever I do I have to do 
   it right.  There is just something in me that makes me that 
   way.  I must do a thing right no matter how long it takes to do 
   it.  I cannot ever hurry myself so fast that I will not do the 
   job right.  If someone attempts to hurry me so fast that I 
   can't do it right the result is frustration and demoralization. 

   Oct 1977