I’m Late, I’m Late for a very important date,
No time to say hello, goodbye.
I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, and when I wave,
I lose the time I save.

White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland

In a famous study, conducted in 1973  by J. M . Darley  and C. D. Batson, researchers at Princeton University,  it was shown that our perception of busyness influences the way we  behave in certain situations.  It was conducted with theology students  who, after completing some initial questionnaires,  were told to go to another building on campus to give a speech. The irony in this study was that the speech was on the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan, where the main character helps a person in distress whom he meets unexpectedly on the road. Some of the students were told that they were late for the speech; others were told that they had a few minutes to spare. On the way, they came across a man slumped in an alleyway who appeared to need help. Out of those students who were told they were late and thus felt that they were in a hurry,  10% stopped to help. Of the group who knew they had a few minutes to spare, 63% stopped.

The crucial variable in the study was not the values of the person or their basic kindness, it was whether or not they believed themselves to be in a hurry. When questioned afterwards, those who had failed to stop said they would have done so, if they had “had more time“. It seems that when we speed up and feel that we are in a hurry, we experience something similar to what Tolman called in 1948 the “narrowing of the cognitive map”. We miss details. We do not make the best or wisest choices. We are not present in the moment to notice what is really important.  Too much focus on the future – one of the driving features of today’s age – means that we ignore what is in front of us in the present. The words “Hurry, you’re late”  had the effect of turning someone who would normally notice,  into someone who was indifferent to suffering — of making someone, in that moment, into a different person.