The Lesson I Almost Missed Because I Was in a Hurry

This week, I started a new audiobook series.

I had purchased it intentionally—drawn in by the promise of insight, growth, and clarity. I pressed play expecting direction. Frameworks. Tools. The meat. I wanted something I could apply immediately, something that would grab my busy, racing mind and give it something solid to hold onto.

Instead, within the first forty-five minutes, I found myself frustrated.

The focus was on centering your mind. Slowing down. Being present. Meditation woven into the early chapters. And while I genuinely appreciate guided meditation—normally, I love it—this time felt different. This time, my mind rejected it.

I remember thinking: This isn’t what I came here for.

I didn’t want to be told how to breathe.

I didn’t want to hear about grounding myself.

I wanted instructions. Action. Tangible steps.

Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix it. Tell me how to move forward.

So I did what I tend to do when something doesn’t immediately give me what I think I need.

I set it aside.

Later that night, I was lying in bed—exhausted but wired. My body tired, my mind running at a million miles an hour, replaying conversations, responsibilities, ideas, worries. The familiar restlessness that comes when the world quiets but my thoughts refuse to follow.

I put on one of my go-to guided meditations. The kind I’ve used dozens of times. Usually reliable. Usually grounding.

But this time, I couldn’t stay with it.

I kept restarting it.

Rewinding.

Trying again.

My thoughts wandered almost immediately—jumping ahead, drifting sideways, refusing to settle. And somewhere between the third and fourth restart, my mind drifted back to that audiobook.

The one I had dismissed.

The one that annoyed me.

The one that talked about staying present in the simplest of tasks.

I am going to the grocery store.

I am walking into the produce section.

I am picking up the apples.

I remember rolling my eyes at that part when I first heard it.

I know what I’m doing, I had thought.

I don’t need to narrate my life.

But there it was—suddenly unmistakable.

The very thing I claimed I didn’t need…

Was the very thing I couldn’t do.

I couldn’t stay present in a meditation for more than a few seconds.

I couldn’t keep my mind anchored in the moment.

I couldn’t slow down long enough to let my body catch up with my brain.

And that’s when it hit me.

The book didn’t lack substance.

It didn’t lack direction.

It didn’t lack value.

It lacked my willingness to slow down.

I had been so focused on finding the meat and potatoes—the action steps, the productivity, the forward motion—that I missed the foundation entirely.

Presence.

Stillness.

Intentional attention.

The work I wanted to rush past was the work I actually needed most.

And if I’m being honest, that realization was uncomfortable.

Because slowing down feels counterintuitive when you’re used to carrying a lot.

When you’re responsible.

When you’re leading.

When you’re building.

When your mind is always ten steps ahead.

Stillness can feel like wasted time.

Presence can feel unproductive.

And centering yourself can feel like a luxury you don’t have room for.

But maybe that’s the lie we tell ourselves.

Maybe slowing down isn’t a pause from the work.

Maybe it is the work.

That night, I didn’t restart the meditation again.

I let it play.

I let my thoughts come and go.

And I allowed myself to sit with the truth I had been resisting.

I wasn’t ready for the book because I wasn’t ready to stop running.

And that awareness—quiet, humbling, and grounding—was more impactful than any checklist or directive I could have been given.

Sometimes growth doesn’t arrive as a breakthrough.

Sometimes it arrives as a mirror.

And sometimes the lesson we’re desperate to skip…

Is the one that holds everything we’ve been searching for.