I...am a slow person.

Not mentally or physically. I'm simply most comfortable when my life is in 3rd gear. I get up early because I don't like to start my day in a rush. I don't like big "energetic" cities (except Hong Kong...there's a calm beneath the activity). I plan because I dislike hurried efforts in unnecessary course correction. I find waiting until the last minute neither exciting nor invigorating. I don't find it the least bit odd or tedious to spend eight hours making a stock or three days on a dish.

I've known this for a while, but have only recently started to pay attention to how it plays with my very goal focused tendencies. In areas of interest where there are no deadlines (linguistics, jiu jitsu), it works very well for me. I can focus and pour energies into things without feeling pressured by external definitions of success. In very complex and nuanced systems that take long periods of time to master, this works to my advantage. I'm perfectly content to spend long periods of time mastering the basics and internalizing concepts.

The opposite is true in most of my professional endeavors.

In the world of business, save the cries of a few visionary voices, faster is still better. My first job out of college was in advertising and I hated every second of it. There were deadlines multiple times a day and almost no room for error or interpretation. I was miserable and my health suffered as a result. While I'm thankfully no longer in a deadline-intensive position, I can see that most organizations in the world of business still value speed over almost all else. That leaves little room for those of us out there that find no inherent value in a fast-paced life.

I do understand the need for urgency at times and am a punctual person 95% of the time, but I'm left wondering how a goal driven person that is also lower-energy navigates a world that bows to the clock.