Who's the slowest mammal in the world?
It's not you, me or Usain Bolt.
But who?
A quick internet search will reveal it as the three-toed sloth. These mammals are so slow that algae can grow on them. Or even worse, they're so lethargic they can be easy prey. So why can't the sloth speed up their actions?
They can't.
They are designed to be slow, from their metabolic rate to their physical anatomy.
It's impossible for them to be speedy.
Humans, on the other hand, can be speedy with their actions. But we tend to forget this.
We all know we have the capacities, but this gets handicapped by our sloth-like behaviour. And we end up with very little done in our lives. We keep thinking we need to take more action, but that's not it.
Taking action is not enough.
I know I preach about action like I'm some hotshot action movie star. But it's because I want my readers to start moving with their lives and goals.
Yet, there is more to taking action than meets the eye. In fact, one x-factor has differentiated great men from the good or average.
And that's speed.
Let's be honest. Anyone can take action. So it's not necessarily special that someone can do XYZ. But when you add speed to it, you will notice a lot of great men were able to get a lot more done in many lifetimes.
Getting things done is not the only benefit of speed.
It is also an integral part of anybody looking to fulfill their potential.
Reading classical history, I noticed heroes like Pericles, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great had similar qualities.
They were courageous, intellectual, and had an affinity for quickness. All these qualities and more combined into something magnificent. As you see, it's not enough to have just one of these excellent traits. But all of them. And many of us developed courage and intellect but neglected speed. Thus, we scratch our heads, wondering why we are in the same position.
Okay, so how can speed help with your goals?
It allows you to go a lot further than you expect.
Once you have a goal, you will use speed to get things done. And with this, you quickly see where the issues are and resolve them.
Instead of using your intellect to figure out all the problems beforehand, you will get accurate life updates on what needs to be overcome.
That's why you learn and grow faster when you choose to be speedy. So while your peers are over-relying on thinking, you are not. You're getting actual life knowledge and experience. But besides goals, speed can add more to your life.
Speed is the secret sauce to an interesting life.
When you know what you want and go after it with speed. You are bound to create a fun and exciting life.
If you want to hang out with a friend. You use speed to find someone. Or if you're going to start combat sports, you find a gym to commit to quickly. Obviously, this can be applied to all areas of your life.
But you can see that you can create a fun life in weeks and not years by being speedy. Too many people are slow to make changes to their lives.
They want to meet new people but are slow to go out.
They want to start a new hobby but are slow to do it.
They want to date new people but are slow to ask girls out.
Many of our issues are not that we don't know what to do. But we are slow to do the things we know how to do. It's not rocket science. But people can't figure out why they have boring lives.
You have to be fast with your actions.
Stop waiting!
Heck, what are you even waiting for?
And if you try and answer honestly, you will realize that whatever that reason is, it's not a valid excuse.
And when I baptize my friends and The Secret Lair members, they realize that all they were missing in life was being speedy with their actions.
I have friends who changed their dating, social, and lives by being quick to take action.
And the same can happen to you.
If we're honest, you'll spice up your life much more. You will think you were crazy for not trying it earlier.
Speaking of crazy.
Some of you might think that being quick to action is reckless.
And this is a fair objection.
I thought about this for a little while, wondering if jumping into taking action could be more harmful than anticipated. So I leaned into the ancients to give me guidance on this.
And what they said was that you need to think first. And when you have a plan in place, you must be speedy in executing it.
This makes perfect sense.
We need to think hard and carefully about what we want to achieve in our lives. And I'm sure we've all done that. But then, once we have a plan, we make a weak attempt at it and return to the drawing board. That's not making the most of your consideration.
Take a look at my step-daddy Gracian's view:
As you can see, Gracian understood to combine thinking and taking speedy action. And that's how you need to look at it.
But to add to this. I'm going to show you what Sun Tzu has to say.
I have heard that in war
Haste can be
Folly;
But have never seen
Delay that was
Wise
As you can see, Sun Tzu takes it a bit further than Gracian. He thinks delays are usually folly. And I think it is because you can recover fast when being speedy. You have to be flexible when relying on speed.
But nonetheless, you can see from two very different ancient sources that it pays to be more speedy. So think about that the next time you find yourself hesitating.
And if that doesn't help, think of how Julius Caesar used speed when he was handicapped for war.
I talk about Julius Caesar like I'm some fanboy.
I can't help it. But because of Caesar's short life, he accomplished a lot. But we can also learn a lot from him, one being speed.
When Caesar decided to engulf Rome in a civil war. This was after a lot of deliberate thinking.
He had fewer resources than his enemies.
He had fewer troops.
He had no naval ships.
The civil war would be an uphill battle.
Caesar realized that his enemies were slow to act. And that could make their advantages invalid. So he decided to go to war but needed to be quick to the punch.
When Caesar crossed the rubicon river to get into Italy, he caught his enemies off guard. Caesar relied on his speed to surprise his enemies. And as this turned out, he was able to capture Rome without a single battle!
That's the power of speed.
To the common man, Caesar seems like he is from another world. But he was like the rest of us, but he understood human nature better than most. And he could take not only Italy but the Roman empire. So don't underestimate the power of speed.
That being said, don't confuse speedy action with speedy results.
People think they will achieve everything much faster if they are speedy. This is naive to think. Because people who think like this will never ever get results fast enough.
Even if they get results faster than their peers, it's still not fast enough. So we need to be aware of this faulty thinking.
We need to focus on being speedy with action and not focusing on the results. To bring up the Bhagavad Gita for like the hundredth time:
Results should not be the focus of your life.
But speedy action. And you will see that Life will reward you in surprising ways.
And to reward your patience, let's get to the summary.
Summary
Taking action is not enough when you are slow.
Speed is one of the traits that separate great men from good men.
Being speedy with your actions will give you more experience and results with your goals compared to people who try to think through things.
Being speedy will allow you to experience more of life than most.
Adding speed to your actions will not make you reckless unless you think carefully first. Augustus' motto: make haste slowly.
Julius Caesar's trait of being speedy helped him win the civil war with fewer resources than his enemies.
A simple mistake is to think you will get fast results with speedy action. Focus only on swift actions, and the rest will take care of themselves.
So many nuisances in life.
And taking action is no different. It's not enough to take action, but be speedy once we've determined what it s we want in life. And since the latter is common to achieve, it's the former we need to emphasize more. And you still might be thinking I'm blowing smoke.
But I dare you.
I dare you to be speedy with your actions for the next couple of weeks and tell me you can't spice up your life. Because you soon realize that you can get almost everything you were looking for; you just need to be quick with your actions. Otherwise, you would be a sloth if you could get everything in life slowly.
Until next time,
Bulcha
The Charismatic Nerd