The Rhythm of the Crowd

I was standing in the grocery store line this morning, watching the person in front of me fumble with their coins. Everyone behind us was shifting their weight, checking their watches, and letting out those heavy, impatient sighs that fill up a room. I felt that same itch to move, to get to the next thing, to stop being stuck in the middle of a process. But then I looked at the man at the front of the line. He wasn’t rushing. He was moving with a deliberate, steady pace, completely unbothered by the collective anxiety hummed by the rest of us. It made me realize how much of our lives are spent trying to match the speed of the people around us, as if moving faster is the same thing as moving forward. We are so afraid of being the one who slows the rhythm down that we forget we are allowed to set our own tempo. What happens when we stop trying to keep up with the blur?

Pharan Tanveer has captured this exact feeling of moving at one’s own pace in the image titled Commutes. It is a beautiful reminder that there is strength in finding your own way through the noise. Does this image make you feel like slowing down, too?