11 didnt change me overnight, even though I wish it had

9/11 didnt change me overnight, even though I wish it had The slowest moment in my whole life was the time between when the World Trade Center fell next to me, and when someone broke a window and I climbed in to get air. In my memory this time span is about fifteen minutes. But from the historical record, I know it was about one minute. I have been writing for seven years about how the World Trade Center changed me. And I have been writing, too, about how much I want to change. Sometimes its about productivity, sometimes its about compassion, sometimes its managing my own money. I always want to change something. I always thought that my success is due to my fast pace. My quick thinking, quick delivery, quick judgment, quick shift. I tell myself that I can get what I want if I try hard enough. And then I translate that to a faster pace. Dont tell me about meditation, and yoga, and being present. Ive done all that. The problem is that a fast-paced overachiever can undermine even those being-present techniques. For example, I am sure that Im better at Ashtanga yoga than you are: See. Thats how the mind of the fast-paced works. There is the step you take where you change what your body is doing, and then there is the second step, where you change what you believe. So I have had a hard time believing that Id be okay with a slower pace. But this year, I tried going slower. I tried to trust that Id change the most by changing my pace. Changing my pace has been about trusting that good things will come from being slow, just as they do from being fast. Its hard to trust in that, because if youve been fast your whole life, you dont know what youll get from slow. Instead, you only see what you cut out of the fast life to make room for the slow life. You know what you lose but not what youll gain. Some of you know what I mean. Others of you are sitting in your chair, smugly thinking that you are great at slow. But those of you who hate a fast pace, you still have a pace problem, its just the opposite: Speed makes you anxious. You might miss something. You might do something wrong. You might get lost. These are the worries of slow people that are foreign to the fast. Pace matters. It opens doors if you use it well. I am not sure if I would be able to change my pace if I had not had an inescapable, defining moment that forced me to try slow. So today I am taking a moment to have gratitude to all the lessons I learned, during my slowest moment.. First-hand Account of 9/11 Two Months After 9/11: Trying to Make Work Normal Again Wall Street After 9/11: The Support Group Starts at 5pm Sharp 9/11: Two Years Later Lessons Learned from New Orleans Digging Myself out of the Debris My 9/11 Day, My Husband, and the Meaning of My To Do List