How Do You Stay Rooted When the World Moves Fast?
How Do You Stay Rooted When the World Moves Fast?
Why even care about roots?
Why not write about “How to be faster so I can catch up with the speed of the world”?
Why not share the latest supplements, hustle highlights, and speed-meeting tips?
I used to think about increasing my speed.
I did the speed reading, the speed networking, the speed dating thing. I read 1–2 books per week, and I was proud of having 10 coffee meetings a day.
Then I realized that I had trained myself very well. Soon enough, I was an expert in being shallow. Master of superficiality. Queen of skipping — like a rock on a lake.
I started my emails like an insecure robot:
“Just checking in.”
“Just touching base.”
Over time, I learned a better way. People aren’t stupid. People don’t want automated email sequences.
They don’t want a drip-feed mailer. They don't want me to touch their base. They need their hearts hugged and their minds blown.
And to do this, I had to slow down.
I had to ground myself. I had to root down — not only to prevent burnout. Trying to catch up with the speed of life is a race you've lost before you even walk to the starting line.
Let’s zoom out for a second and look at what “the speed of life” actually means in numbers:
What about books?
In 2025, over 1 million new books will be published in English alone.
Let’s say you’re an ambitious reader and manage to read one book per month (most people read fewer).
At that rate, it would take you 83,000 years to read all the books published this year alone.
And by the time you’re done? Another 83 million books will have been added to the pile. I love reading — but this freaks me out…
What about data?
The world is creating more than 400 million terabytes of data every single day. That’s the digital equivalent of every person on Earth watching Netflix for 12 hours straight — every. single. day.
Or reading 20 billion books — every. single. day.
And tomorrow? Even more. Good luck storing that in your brain.
What about AI?
The AI industry was worth $214 billion last year, and it's expected to hit $1.3 trillion by 2030.
That’s like going from owning a house…
to suddenly owning the entire city.
This is not to say you should give up and hide under a rock — quite the opposite.
It’s to remind you that no matter how fast you run, you’ll never outrun the algorithms.
So maybe the answer isn’t catching up.
Maybe the answer is slowing down and doing what only humans can do:
Savouring a moment.
Sensing nuance.
Listening with your whole body.
Creating things that are imperfect, but deeply felt.
Because while the machines speed up,
your superpower might just be…
the pause.
Ps: If you want to find out your superpowers - those that will make you successful no matter the speed of the world - go to TheHumanCV dot com.