Driving lessons IX: Slow doesn’t mean safe

Counterintuitive but true:

Slow doesn’t mean safe.

I always thought driving slow is safer. But now that I’m learning driving, I couldn’t be more wrong. Sometimes being slow is more dangerous. When you move off too slowly, someone in a hurry and distracted might bump into you from behind. When you slow down too fast too abruptly on a highway, you might set off a chain accident.

Same with building.

Going slow might mean building consistently, building for quality, running your own race, being meticulous. But slow also means you’re expanding the surface area for bad luck to happen. Job loss, income loss, health conditions, loss of motivation, issues from others.

All of which happened to me. In real life.

I get that I need to run my own race now, and build at a consistency that fits my life stage and lifestyle. But I’m definitely feeling the friction from being too slow too. And potentially ending up shipping nothing.

Not too fast, but not too slow either.

Slow doesn’t mean safe.