What's the hurry, States?

I find myself sleeping in a tight, kitchen-smelling dorm room with five other college students, four of them from the Basque Country (shame on you, if a consistent reader of my blog doesn't know where that is), at Santa Clara University during these these next two days (Jesuit Volunteers International discernment weekend).
This weekend marks the convergence of two huge thought processes: Spain vs. the USA, and reflection/simplification. I had been hectically trying to get everything done before coming to this discernment weekend, and can say that I failed miserably, at least in completing school work--I did buy a senior banquet/ball dress, I did write a pretty darn good article for the Loyolan, and I even applied for a job in Oregon, for which I'm pretty sure I'm getting an interview. Not bad! The point is, a lot was going on. Here's the problem with that. And if you're a college student, heck, if you're American, you know exactly what I'm talking about: a lot is always going on.
Funny, then, that as I struggled to uproot myself from academics and stress in exchange for reflection and interviews about possibly spending two years in the developing world, I found myself having a conversation with Nagore Gutierrez, a 22-year-old Basque exchange student at Santa Clara, about slowing down.
"Everyone in the US is always in such a hurry," she said. "I can't have close friendships with people because they're always going from one place to another, and they don't have time to talk or think."
Yikes. And I...can do nothing but agree. Because she was cooking a delicious Spanish dinner for us--salad with guacamole, eggs Benedict, fried potatoes, pork, oh yeah--I recalled grocery stores as an example. This past Wednesday I found myself stopping by Whole Foods for frozen blueberries and lettuce. I noticed no one in the store bothered to make eye contact with anyone else, and when we did, there was a clear sense of invasion--what are you doing taking up my time with your thoughts? Keep your eyes on your own business. And everyone was moving so fast. I nostalgically recalled shopping in Spain, where old men in berets spend 30 minutes staring at the chocolate bar selection, and I had no problem joining them.
But in the US, I'm swept up in the drive to DO. HURRY. FINISH. MORE. Which is a large part of the reason that I need to get out of it. At least for a while.
Because, news flash: life goes too fast on its own. You don't need to help it along.