Back to your rushed commute, then. In this case it's clear that the speed of your car is constrained by traffic and speed limits. It's also clear that driving a car does not actually require that much effort. Whether you're late for work or not, the energy required to turn a steering wheel or change gear is the same.

Yet consider how different your body feels when you're rushing, compared with when you feel you have all the time in the world. At the end of a rushed drive you may be sore all over, sweating hard with your breathing fast and shallow. What's going on here? None of these things helps you arrive at your destination any faster. The amount of energy... See more

Olympic sprinters don't rush, even though they move as fast as they possibly can. Olympic sprinters know and fully accept that running 100m takes as long as it takes. Their aim is for it to take as little time as possible, yes, but they don't begrudge how long it takes. Those ten seconds from starting block to finish line don't annoy them...... See more

The enormous upside to all this is that this extra energy can be liberated if we just allow things to take as long as they take. This doesn't even mean having to move slowly in circumstances that require us to move quickly, but to be able to move quickly in an easy, non-rushed way!