Most mornings and evenings you will find me impersonating the tortoise. He is slow, but he is cool. So calm. So laid back. So relaxed. Yet he still somehow manages to beat the hot-headed hare every single time.
That’s because the tortoise is smart you see. The tortoise realises that going any faster is futile. It’s tiring. It uses more energy. It raises levels of stress and anxiety which in turn lowers the effectiveness of the immune system, raised blood pressure and can even serve to shorten ones life. There’s a reason tortoises seem to live forever, you know.
The highway is busy too and although the Hare can shoot past the tortoise on the long open stretches, the Hare’s progress will undeniably falter as traffic queues to negotiate each junction, pedestrian crossing or roundabout. In fact, because of all the hares buzzing by, there will be more traffic slowly dissipating into each conurbation.
Even if the hare manages to wind it’s oversized muscular carcass around all the other traffic, it will be at the expense of other hares. Pushing, shoving, taking shortcuts through quiet neighbourhoods and perhaps stopping where he shouldn’t having run out of breath.
The tortoise passes the hare in traffic and reaches his destination feeling alive and fresh. The Hare is stressed and exhausted and hunting around voraciously for a half-decent caffiene fix. In his fluster, the hare didn’t notice the tortoise go quietly by.
