Shortcuts: Always Worth Taking?
Sometimes, it’s a great idea. If a journey can be shortened, why not take the shortcut? It seems perfectly logical and sensible. If something can be achieved quickly via some kind of quick route, surely that too is often a good thing.
What about the mentality of always needing to find a shortcut, though? What if we fall into that trap? I’ve been observing and wondering (simultaneously) what happens when that happens. I’ve decided that (in my view) shortcuts are not always the best plan.
A life illustration for your consideration: I have just listened to Atomic Habits by James Clear. It was a book that kept appearing on my ‘suggested listening’ list because I have been known to dabble with self-help books (understatement). I have been applying some of the principles and strategies suggested within it to my life and living and routines, which we’ll get to. But what brought me to the concept that shortcuts might not always be the best way was the actions I witnessed in others after I’d been going on about some aspects of the book.
The skim reading approach or the want to know the main point and not need to read the book approach. Don’t get me wrong, for some, I’m sure it works well. Just reading through on a device where one can simply just read the bits that other readers have chosen to highlight (for their own reasons), is one way of accessing some of the material in any book. Sure. Yeah. Why not? Or reading a brief synopsis, fine. However, maybe there are reasons it might be a good idea to read the book yourself if the book is of interest to you.
For starters, if you are only reading what someone else has highlighted as being important or beneficial, who is to say that what stood out for others will be the same content as will be useful to you? Also, there is the possibility of you missing something that might positively impact you if you are only reading that which has been highlighted by someone else. Yes, there’s always the argument that you’ve read lots before about a subject matter or have extensive experience in a certain field of knowledge and so reading more about it is considered futile. Really? Is it? Have you reached a point of feeling that you have absorbed and are living out all you know because of all you have previously learnt or heard about the subject matter? If you have, lovely. However, for me, not a chance of it. Most of what I read seems to go in my eyes and much of it then rattles around in my head or falls out of my left ear (not literally, but you get my point). I will be forever learning even in areas of relative understanding, experience or knowledge.
I began to consider what happens if we only seek shortcuts in all life areas. Isn’t the end point of that simply that we do not actually connect with anything we might do or be involved in? Doesn't that approach result in the reality that all connection is surface level, and all interaction is at speed? If we reach that way of functioning as our 'norm', what are we doing?!
What is it we are aiming at? Is it a destination? If so, what is that destination? Or is it a result like ‘being rich’? And if it is that, then what? Spend, spend, spend as if this will either give us internal security or external pleasure? Okay, so what about when the money runs out, then what?
Or is it a shortcut to a product produced? Okay. For what purpose? Is it to ensure the product you want to sell can be made quickly to ensure profits are good? Doesn’t that lead to the same money focus I just mentioned?
I made my mum a bag. It’s made from crocheted squares. I can’t yet really crochet anything other than squares and circles but even just by using squares, it was a bit of a challenge, and it took ages. 30 hours of crocheting, I estimate. 30 hours at £15 per hour plus materials? The bag, if calculated like that is probably worth £460. Would anyone pay £460 for it? Er…no. I very much doubt it. Could I have made a bag faster using different techniques or materials? Yes. Why didn’t I? Because Mum loves cream crocheted things, and I thought she might like something I’d made for her. Could I have spent those 30 hours doing something else? Yes. What? Anything, really. Did I need to find a bag making shortcut or is the bag a nicer thing for mum because of the time it took me to make it? Not sure, but maybe. I also felt a greater sense of achievement in having made it because of how long it took. Weird, maybe, but true.
Sometimes, maybe the fastest routes to any result are not the best or wisest.
Having read the Atomic Habits book I mentioned earlier, I have been implementing the habit of daily Yoga. Why? Because I have decided that I want to grow old with my body working as well as it can do and that leaves me with a responsibility to ensure that happens. Right? So, I wanted to ensure I was building a habit where this could be facilitated. James Clear speaks of making the habits easy to do (so you can’t talk yourself out of them) and a whole load of other brilliant and fully rational ideas that help to establish habits. I will only make my core strong and be still able to be as flexible as I can be for as long as I maintain that it is my responsibility to do the physical activities required to create this outcome. Is there a shortcut? No. Can I eat something or do something or take something to make me more flexible or stronger? No. If I get to a level of core strength and flexibility that I am happy with, can I then just stop? I doubt it because surely all I have worked on would slowly unravel and become less and less evident in my physical body. Do I need to find a shortcut to get to the point of being as strong and flexible as possible? I think no. Maybe one could even suggest that the time and effort it will take me is beneficial to me and is making the process more worthwhile as I spend ‘non-shortcuted’ time trying to help myself become fitter.
I’ve noticed we rush about. So often, we are rushing about. So often we are en route to somewhere that I’m not even sure we’ve considered where it might be. And while we (often) rush on to the unknown destination for largely unknown reasons, we seemingly try (often) to find shortcuts so we can get to the next achievement or place or target more quickly.
But Dawn, you don’t understand, I need to achieve X, Y and Z along with F, G, and H and it must be done by R time. Yes. I’ve lived like that and still do when I revert to it (frequently). But how many of these things must be time dependent and done in a rush? Yes, I need to be at work at the time I need to be there and yes, there are things I need to achieve in my home and life. But if I’m finding I’m forever stretched and rushing and seeking shortcuts, maybe it is time that I considered what I’m doing and address that rather than just finding the quickest way to achieve 'fill the blank’.
Maybe time is as it is so that we get to choose what we do with it. Maybe it exists as it does so we can choose to be forever onto the next thing or have the chance to notice the now of now. Maybe it operates how it does so that once it has been spent, it is gone, in the same way money is gone when it is spent. The time we have is here right now and yet we’re ‘over there’ or aiming for something that isn’t yet and charging on at speed, finding as many shortcuts as we can so that we can get there quickly.
Let’s say we achieved it all (all the things on our own to do lists of life), then what? We sit and stare at the wall until what happens? And what will we do as we stare at the wall waiting for whatever it is we’re waiting for because we’ve achieved all the things we needed to because of all the shortcuts we took?
We have (it seems to me) evolved into being a perplexing group of people (if this is how we’re living – not all will be). It’s not all of us, I’m sure. But I know for me, I’ve been looking at ‘how’ I am living rather than ‘what’ I must achieve. Things have shifted in me internally (yes, because of external to me catalysts), and I’ve realised a few things:
· It probably isn’t about what we achieve or how recognised that is by others.
· It probably isn’t about how quickly we can get to wherever (literal place or metaphorical destination in terms of achievement).
· It probably isn’t about how much money we can accumulate or spend or about what we own or owe.
· It probably isn’t even about how healthy we are or what levels of fitness we maintain so we can grow old as healthily as we can.
But maybe it is about how we travel.
Does it need to be high speed all the time? Although I used to live like that, I’m changing. I’m questioning the benefits of constant high-speed travel in life. And I’m increasingly aware it might be all more to do with how I do whatever, wherever and with whoever. Rather than whatever destination of ‘where’, maybe the ‘how’ I get there is more important.
Does that mean I will have no goals or aims? No. I must have those to stay my version of mostly relatively sane. But maybe I don’t need to find every shortcut there is to try to get there yesterday when there is probably more to learn, to see and to experience as I go if I (using an example from earlier) read the whole book myself and not resort to skimming my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-shortcut. If Google Maps tell me there’s a quicker and shorter way for me to get from Folkestone to my Mum in Cornwall, I will be taking that route…but maybe the shift in me is more to do with my focus. The intent that is growing in me now is an attempt at seeing the action of travelling as a key part of it all, rather than just an annoying inconvenience. Maybe.
Is there a place for shortcuts? Probably, yes. Do we need to always seek them out? Maybe not.