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The Impatience Spiral 🌪️
The faster things get, the less we can tolerate any wait at all. Burkeman traces how speed itself has become the enemy of doing things well — or doing them at all.
Today's Plan
- ☕ Catch up & popcorn20 min
- 🌪️ Chapter summary10 min
- 💬 Discussion questions25 min
- 🌱 One take-away each5 min
1 · Catch Up ☕
First 20 minutes
Before we get into the chapter, let's land together. Fire up the popcorn picker and share whatever feels right:
- How was your week — actually?
- One moment this week you got annoyed at something for being slow.
- One thing you're glad about right now.
2 · Chapter Summary 🌪️
10 minutes
A walk through Chapter 10 — how speed begets impatience, what gets ruined when we try to optimize it out, and Burkeman's case for slowness as a discipline.
3 · Discussion Questions 💬
25 minutes
Pick the ones that feel interesting — no need to go in order.
- Where has your tolerance for slowness shrunk most? Loading screens, replies, traffic, books, conversations?
- Burkeman argues impatience compounds: every quick thing makes the next slow thing feel more intolerable. Have you noticed this in yourself?
- What's something genuinely good in your life that took (or is taking) longer than you'd like — and that you keep wanting to rush?
- When was the last time you tried to speed something up and made it worse?
- The chapter says some things — therapy, friendship, learning, parenting — cannot be sped up without becoming something else. Which of these are you trying to optimize anyway?
- What does your life teach you to be impatient with? Where did the lesson come from?
- What's one slow thing this week you'll let take its full time, deliberately?
4 · One Take-Away 🌱
Last 5 minutes
Around the group, one sentence each:
- One thing you're taking with you from today.
- One thing you'll let be slow this week, on purpose.
Notes from the session
Filled in after we meet