Chasing Down The (Essential and Elusive) Pause Between Thought and Action
What is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Hint: Not Superman. He is a who; as in, who is faster … I’m talking about The Pause; that essential and elusive moment between thought and action where we have the chance to stop the bullet of hurt and alienation finding its target. The Pause is the space in which we make a conscious choice about what we are going to say or do next, instead of vomiting up a mess of words, while simultaneously putting our foot in our mouth and, not-so-incidentally, hurting or alienating someone else (and hurting ourselves, just to add insult to injury).
Most often we are counseled to slow way down for The Pause. As if The Pause needs to catch up to us. As if The Pause is just strolling along minding her business, smelling the flowers, like Ferdinand the Bull. As if The Pause is meek, waiting for us to notice her existence, so she can inherit the earth. No. That advice to slow down is like putting on lead shoes for a sprint. The Pause is lightning in a jar, a shooting star, a ghost slipping away behind our left shoulder. So elusive. We need to be fast for The Pause. We need to catch The Pause as she races past us at warp speed.
