GIRL TALK - Column

I have this great theory but, darn it, I'm late
Impatience can be a beautiful thing. It can propel us from inaction to action, from mediocrity to greatness. It can inspire us to push for change and get done in a day what might have taken a year.
It can also drive us to distraction. Quite literally.
Last night as I made my way home late in a can't-wait-to-hit-the-sack-but-not-enough-to-break-the-speed-limit kind of way, the driver of the car behind me decided to sit on my tail so closely that I could almost see his nose hairs in my rear vision mirror.
I could definitely see him picking at them, that's for sure.
As his headlights flirted shamelessly with my towbar, I decided the only remedy was to be a classic passive-aggressive and ease off on the accelerator in a way that would be the envy of 85-year-old Sunday drivers.
At an ambling 20km/h, I marvelled at the many details one tends to miss at five times the speed, such as the way you can actually see spittle propel itself from a cussing mouth to the windscreen even when watched through the rear vision mirror.
Lip-reading has never been my strength but even I could see that the chap behind me had a creative way with words.
Predictably, he overtook me and sped off. Also predictably, I caught up with him at the next set of traffic lights and waved. We had shared a moment, after all.
The irony of impatience is that it doesn't matter how much you push to get somewhere by yesterday, there is always a set of traffic lights waiting for you; literal or figurative.
The compulsion to get ahead at all costs is a flaw of the human condition the world over. In every language, there is an expletive to accompany the urgency of running late and, no matter our cultural heritage, there will always be those among us desperate to get nowhere first.
Airport gates are the best example. With allocated seating in cramped conditions, we nevertheless leap up the instant boarding is called and race for the queue as though it were St Peter opening the gates of heaven and not a flight attendant ushering punters into 12 hours of hell.
As impatient as we are to get on at one end, we are to get off at the other. The collective bustle as the seatbelt light goes off can almost drown out the dying jet engines, and the push to squash to the front of the plane before the doors even open makes me wonder why there aren't more unplanned pregnancies kicked off in economy.
The beautiful thing is that just as you will always meet the impatient driver who broke land speed records to overtake you on a blind corner at the next set of lights, the dude who has his briefcase at the ready and pushes his way rudely down the aisle will always be waiting at the luggage terminal and, in a strange but beautiful example of serendipity, his bag will usually come out last.
The moral of today's homily is that we all need to slow down.
In true tortoise style, we will get to the finish line eventually and, if we take it easy, we often get there first and without the sweaty armpits.
Putting good theories like this into practice is the real challenge, however, and in a case of do as I say and not as I do, I have to admit by ambling through this written discourse at a leisurely pace I am now running late to my next appointment and suspect the driver in front of me might be seeing spittle on the windscreen behind him some time very soon.