The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World

by John Mark Comer

7. Live by a budget.

8. Learn to enjoy things without owning them.

9. Cultivate a deep appreciation for creation.

10. Cultivate a deep appreciation for the simple pleasures.

11. Recognize advertising for what it is—propaganda. Call out the lie.

12. Lead a cheerful, happy revolt against the spirit of materialism.

Again, the truism: we achieve inner peace when our schedules are aligned with our values.

The attitude toward time and environment known as “multitasking” does not represent civilizational progress…. Rather, such an aptitude amounts to regression. Multitasking is commonplace among wild animals. It is an attentive technique indispensable for survival in the wilderness…. In the wild, the animal is forced to divide its attention between various activities. That is why animals are incapable of contemplative immersion…. Not just multitasking but also activities such as video games produce a broad but flat mode of attention, which is similar to the vigilance of a wild animal…. Concern for the good life…is yielding more and more to the simple concern for survival.13

For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity….

What if the day, what if time itself isn’t a scarce resource to seize but a gift to receive with grateful joy?

Aim at an easy life and your actual life will be marked by a gnawing angst and frustration; aim at an easy yoke and, as John Ortberg once said, “Your capacity for tackling hard assignments will actually grow.”

What’s hard isn’t following Jesus. What’s hard is following myself, doing my life my way; therein lies the path to exhaustion.

Should you enlist in the war on hurry, remember what’s at stake. You’re not just fighting for a good life but for a good soul.