The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world

Comer continues his analysis of contemporary society’s fixation on speed, noting many of the deleterious effects of that obsession. From the 1950s onward, cultural analysts began to speak of the modern trend of hurry as a disease, one that could manifest in very real symptoms, such as an elevated risk of heart disease. Comer refers to it as “a form of violence on the soul” (47).

Comer notes how widespread and ordinary this disease of hurry is, manifested in common behaviors like the proclivity to search for the shortest line when waiting for a stoplight or a grocery store checkout, or the habitual attempt to multitask rather than to devote one’s attention to one task at a time. Even if these common behaviors might not be true of every reader, Comer notes that the disease of hurry can show up in an array of possible symptoms, of which he lists 10: irritability, hypersensitivity, restlessness, workaholism, emotional numbness, disordered priorities, lack of care for one’s body, escapism, failure to maintain spiritual disciplines, and isolation.

Due to the pervasive and overall toxic effects of these symptoms, Comer warns that the disease of hurry can ultimately kill all we hold dear: our relationships, our ability to feel joy and gratitude, and our pursuit of wisdom. The reason why hurry has such toxic effects on our spiritual and emotional lives is because it draws our attention away from the deep things that really matter, instead shifting our focus to an endless array of surface-level circumstances. The things we give our attention to shape our interior lives in a powerful way, and so if our attention is never oriented toward God, for example, we will likely never develop the awareness of God’s presence that is so crucial for a vibrant spiritual life.

In this chapter, Comer offers perhaps his clearest development of one of the book’s major themes, The Dangers of a Hurried Lifestyle. He identifies those dangers as being present in almost every area of one’s life: physical health, relationships, emotional well-being, and spirituality. Hurry’s effects are so pervasive and so potentially toxic that they can lead to what Comer describes (quoting William Irvine) as “misliving” (56)—essentially, missing out on what life is really all about because we are focused on unimportant ephemera instead. As throughout the book, Comer stresses the outsized role that media technologies have played in producing this culture of hurry and divided awareness, an observation which sets the stage for some of his advice in subsequent chapters.

The thematic emphasis on the dangers of hurry also leads Comer to reflect briefly on another important theme, The Importance of Living in the Present Moment. Although this theme will receive greater development elsewhere in the book, Comer notes here that the problem of hurry ultimately leads us to a deficit of awareness of the most important things, and this will be a foundational insight in his exploration of solutions in Part 2.