Don’t Rush in a Rush Hour Culture
By: Chris Guzman
Tags: Pandemic Diaries, Life Hacking, Work Life Balance, God, Life Lessons

The government shutdown of life as we know it in a pandemic-stricken world has significantly slowed, even forever altered, our normal routines.

I really miss going to Dodger games (and I still want that World Series victory parade from Chavez Ravine to Downtown Los Angeles). Swing dancing lessons were on my radar until social distancing pulled the plug on the party. The LA County Fair, a concert or two, and a few other of my favorite things in 2020 would have also been fun.

Oh well.

Inconvenience happens, and so many of us want to escape that reality ASAP without pausing to embrace a prime opportunity for personal growth.

As the vaccine rollout process continues, we hear a lot of chatter about life going back to how we remember it - and we might be tempted to hustle the end of 2020 to get a shot at a fresh reset in 2021. It’s almost as if we think we have any control over how time moves forward.

The sobering reality is that not even next year is guaranteed for any of us because life is like a vapor.

The Great Disruption of this past year has caused me to reflect: The 9–5 grind seems to have conditioned us to the routine of hurrying from Point A to Point B, even as the cars on the freeway move 2 miles per hour in traffic.

But when 2020 happened, work from home became more of a trend to minimize exposure to the virus in our hip, collaborative office spaces usually stocked with unlimited candy and caffeinated beverages.

We don’t have as many social hot spots to skedaddle to as we did in 2019. Our movements have been a lot more restricted and limited.

Here’s a concept: What if this past year has taught us to move away from the Rush Hour Culture especially ingrained in the big city life so many have become accustomed to? What if God created us human beings to slow down and designed us to think about what’s really important in life as a whole during these “unprecedented times”?

From 2021 and beyond, what if we just lived undistracted and in the moment — with the memories we make, the conversations we have, and the way we choose to treat people in our communities?

Maybe we should start this kind of approach together tomorrow.

[Author’s Note: For the record, I’m on Team Less Looking At My Phone and Team More Sustained Eye Contact. That’s because much of what I experienced in 2020 has caused me to reevaluate what and who gets my attention. The year has amplified the vanity of superficial drama and the importance of authentic connection for me personally. More pondering deep things too.]

Anyway, all of this is just an introduction to me personally blogging online again after a very long hiatus. I’ll write about life, lessons learned, baseball (of course), some pop culture, ect.

While so many others are fighting about politics on the internet, I want to do something a bit different here. Kind of funny coming from someone who’s worked in the Washington, DC political bubble.

I hope you’ll find the content interesting and uplifting. Maybe I’ll make some new meaningful friends along the way. I’m also always up for crowdsourced writing prompts too (and independent coffee house recommendations. Did I mention independent coffeehouse recommendations?).

I’ll hope you’ll stop by! Until then, may many good things come your way.