For years, my time spent in the shower could have got me a mention in Guinness World Records as the shortest time taken to bathe. I hurried up during this process.

    One day, however, while at a party, I heard an artist friend telling everybody that his idea came while he was having a shower. “What about you?” he asked, “Don't you get your creative thoughts from the same place?”

    “I'm in and out in a hurry,” I told him proudly. “I have no time to waste!”

    “What a pity,” he said. “That's the place where you need to slow down; plenty of great thoughts come from there!” I tried it out. I slowed down the whole process, started enjoying the warm water, taking a little longer to soap myself and even spending more time just enjoying the process, and realized how much I had missed in hurrying up all these years.

    A woman told me how much stress her friend was suffering from and how she sought to convince her that she needed to find ways to relax. She gave her a videotape on stress management and relaxation techniques, and encouraged her to watch it right away. Fifteen minutes later, her friend handed back the tape. “It was good,” she said,” but I don't need it.”

    “But it's a 70 - minute video,” the woman replied, “You couldn't have watched the whole thing.”

    “Yes, I did,” her friend said. “I put it in fast - forward!”

A major social problem of the 21st century is Hurry Sickness. We hurry through work. We swallow fast food. We complain that we don't have enough time. We race through the days and weeks until one day we look back in amazement and comment, “My god, how the years flew by!” Then we realize the heavy price we have paid for traveling fast.

    Symptoms of Hurry Sickness include stress and anxiety, bad relationships, lowered work performance and even disease. Some people don't survive it. What's the cure? Slow down, for life is so short and precious that we must live it well.