We all know a hare or two. Their businesses triple in size within a year. They lose 40 pounds in the blink of an eye. Their investments grow. They make the Best Seller list. Everything happens so quickly for them! And perhaps, in your all-too-human moments you, like me, have stood in awe of the hare. Perhaps even awe tinged with a bit of jealousy.

But not everyone moves at the speed of the hare. The tortoise is slow. The tortoise is deliberate. The tortoise will not be pushed or rushed or pressured. And, after all,  Aesop tells us that the tortoise won the race.

Slightly past the midpoint of the first month of the new year I find myself already reviewing my progress towards my goals. In the past, I have often found this process painful - I should be further along. I should have accomplished more. Perhaps I’m wasting time or not good enough to reach my goal, or one of the thousands of little demon messages I might think.

This year, I’m taking the long view. I’m looking back further and appreciating the significant growth and change that has occurred - not in three weeks, but in three years. And in taking the long view, it’s possible to see big changes that are not apparent in the extreme close-up that marks the hare’s perspective.

I am reminded that the tortoise lives hundreds of years. And that a turtle holds the world on its back. Perhaps slow and steady is, after all, my style. What view are you taking of your life? What pressures are you creating if you are, by nature, a tortoise but masquerade as a hare?

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