How To Deal With Urgency Culture

Finding Balance So You Can Prioritize Your Happiness

Recently, a friend called me a professional “slower-downer.” I love that because if there’s something we can agree on, it’s that we’re all moving too fast. The expectation of being available, responding to emails at 10 pm, or texting back immediately crept into our lives so gradually that it went from being a novelty to a standard before we could do anything about it.

If we zoom out a little, we can see the effect urgency culture has on our lives. Yes, it turns you into a 24-hour customer service agent of your own life, which gives you anxiety and makes it hard to relax. But there’s a deeper problem that many don’t realize. Always being on call isn’t just about giving away your time. It’s about giving away your attention.

This is where the guilt, shame, and frustration come from when you don’t respond to people on the timeline they created. Some people get angry because when you don’t make yourself available as quickly as they want, you aren’t giving them the attention they desire, and they take it as being ignored. 

But let’s forget about the social game and consider another angle of our urgency culture. 

What does living with this tension do to you? 

What happens long-term when your attention is constantly under pressure? 

Living like this doesn’t just keep you from living peacefully. 

It keeps you from giving yourself the attention you deserve. 

When you don’t have the bandwidth to give yourself a healthy amount of attention, you start living on autopilot, stressed out—always feeling unfinished. This lack of self-care makes it near impossible to slow down, quiet your mental chatter, make intentional choices, deeply connect with others, plan for your future, and—I know it’s a radical idea—enjoy your life while existing in the abundant beauty of the present.

Missing the present and living unintentional, disconnected lives is a problem that isn’t special. It’s universal, which is a shame. But it’s where we are at right now in modern culture. 

There’s a reason why this short thought I posted on Instagram a few weeks ago about urgency culture went viral. Check these analytics.

Social media serves many positive purposes, and showing us what’s trending in the cultural mind—good or bad—is one of them. 381,342 likes, 105,654 shares, 76,057 saves, and over 10 million people reached. It’s clear this post struck a nerve.

Most of the comments on the post are positive. They see the problem, understand how it’s affecting them, and are trying to figure out how to gain self-clarity and rebalance their lives. What I found interesting is that about a third of the comments are cynical, defeatist, and even angry. Statements like “Yeah, try telling that to my boss,” “Spoken like a starving artist,” or “Nice until someone takes your job.”

Those comments are interesting because they showcase the problem and illustrate our misunderstanding about what it means to slow down and find clarity in our lives. 

Learning to manage your relationship with urgency culture isn’t about ghosting the world and ignoring your responsibilities. It’s about learning how to take back part of your life—and part of yourself—so you can prioritize your happiness and stop feeling so overwhelmed and undernourished. 

Reconnecting with ourselves, living with conscious intention, setting digital boundaries, and slowing down into the present is a choice. It’s something we can all do to make our lives brighter, freer, and lighter.

It isn’t about disappearing and being selfish. It’s about showing up, being strong, and learning the tools to finally give yourself the space and respect you deserve. 

If we remember the top of this writing, I’m a professional slower-downer. And I see how many of you are feeling anxious and overwhelmed with mental chatter while still being passionately driven by the desire to slow down, gain mental clarity, and take charge of your future. That’s why I decided to create my first live online teaching program to share my expertise and help support the lives of those who are facing these modern challenges.

Slow School is an eight-week program that will teach you how to clear your mental clutter, live with intention, strengthen your relationships, manage your digital overwhelm, confidently navigate change, let go of anxiety, and use creativity as an exciting self-healing tool. 

Not only will I teach the classes live on Zoom, but we will also have special sessions for group conversation. That way, everyone will be able to gain invaluable community support by sharing their experiences and challenges with the other group members.

I’m offering enrollment to Substack reads before sharing it on social media, so you’ll have the first opportunity to claim one of the limited spots.  

Read more here: cory-allen.com/slowschool