What's the rush?

I alwyas see people rushing. I am always rushing, you are always rushing, and you have seen it as well. I wonder, why is it that people are in such a rush. What are we losing by taking it easy? What are we missing when we rush?

I'd like to tell a story to illustrate this point.

I was in the Boy Scouts until I turned 18. My three greatest memories from scouting are being selected to join the Order of the Arrow (a secret society), going to Sea Base - living on a sailboat for a week - and going to Philmont.

Most of you have never heard of Philmont, so quickly, it is a "high adventure" scout camp. it is located in north eastern New Mexico, and it is essentiall a huge mountain park. My trip to Philmont was a roughly 100 mile hike through the mountains over the course of 10 days. Here is where I will begin to tie this rambling back to my point.

Every day we would break camp at 4:30 or 4:45 and hit the trail to the next camp. We would hike at a 16 minute a mile pace when going up hill and even faster when going downhill. For those of you wondering why that matters, that is extremely fast.

There are 2 main events that always reappear in my mind when I catch myself rushing. Some of the greatest beauty to be found is in the landscape that has yet to be altered by man. We went through mointain passes from your dreams, into valleys of whistling aspen, and across real bubbling brooks with jumping fish. We saw deer, foxes, a bear, and many other beatiful creatures, some more closely than we might have hoped.

But the most amazing thing I saw happened on the fourth day of our hike. We were walkigng next to a stream, and not fifteen feet from the trail there was a massive beaver dam. The beavers were hard at work building the dam and I must have seen fifteen or so of them slapping mud into the dam with their tails, caring for their babies, or just playing and splashing. This was beaver heaven. We stopped upon my request and my dad and I took a few pictures while the others rested.

That evening before we went to sleep, as was our custom, we shared our high and lowlights from the day. I went next to last and I was surprised when noone mentioned the dam. When it was my turn I said "the beaver dam was one of the most beautiful and perfect things I have ever seen. It was so amazing to see them working together and having a blast." 10 of the 11 other people in my group (everyone but my dad, including the other 2 leaders) looked at me and sai "What beaver dam?"

Two mornings later we broke camp from an amazing place, Cimmaroncito, (amazing becuase that was the only stop with showers) at 4:30 as usual and headed out. We left before the other two groups from our troop, but though nothing of it. When we finished the trip some three days later we were greeted a the end of the trail by our head scoutmaster who had driven up from Beaumont to greet us.

He asked us how we liked the cake they sent to Cimmaroncito to be left for us at 7a.m. We had missed it because of our rush to get to the next campsite.

So whats my point?

Slow it down or you could miss the dam cake.

But seriously, ever since then I have caught myself rushing, and those memories, as well as others have helped me to remember that we only get one life, one day at a time. This world, and the people in it are amazing. Don't take it for granted.