“There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.”

Being fast and doing the most in the least time is something we’ve come to praise and idolize as a society. Games, sports, and competitions of mental aptitude are often won by whoever is fastest. There is no reward for the slowest person to win a race, the last person to complete a task, or the last person to ring in the correct answer. So, we become conditioned to believe that without speed we lose. In other words, we’re a loser at life. As a result, we find ourselves rushing toward every milestone and accomplishment, sometimes forgetting ourselves in the process. And if we don’t reach those milestones and accomplishments within a certain time, we feel we’ve failed, taking away some of the joy we should feel in getting there.

But no matter their speed, the person who finishes the race last still finishes. The last person to complete a task still completes it. And the person who was too slow to ring in the right answer before the buzzer, still knows the answer. Those have to count for something.

This quote, by Mahatma Gandhi, reminds us that there’s more to life than increasing its speed. It’s ok to slow down. Moreover, it’s ok to see value in the end result and not so much the speed in which we get there.