Book Review // The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

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TL;DR: ★★★★★ - Worth the rush to read about not rushing.

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In an era where "busy" has become our default state of being, John Mark Comer's "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry" arrives with all the subtlety of a meditation bell in the New York Stock Exchange.

The irony isn't lost on me: another book about slowing down, likely to be devoured in rushed fragments between client meetings and dog walks. Yet Comer's message cuts through our productivity-obsessed culture with unsettling precision.

"Hurry is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart," he writes, a diagnosis that feels uncomfortably accurate for anyone who's ever checked Slack while pretending to be present on their evening walk with the dogs through Silver Lake. Our perpetual rush, Comer argues, isn't merely poor time management—it's a spiritual malady.

The book's central thesis hits hardest when he quotes Dallas Willard: "The number one enemy of spiritual life is hurry." It's a bold claim to contemplate from my hillside apartment in Echo Park, where the city's relentless energy pulses below and "hustle culture" has achieved almost religious status. But Comer builds his case methodically, demonstrating how our frantic pace erodes not just our peace but our very capacity for joy.

"Hurry is incompatible with love," he asserts, and suddenly, all those rushed goodbyes and half-heard conversations with my partner take on a weightier significance. We're not just busy; we're bankrupting our souls in the currency of unchecked calendars and endless to-do lists.

Perhaps most subversive is Comer's insistence on Sabbath-keeping—a practice that feels almost rebellious in our "rise and grind" culture. "The root of hurry is an inability to trust God and be with God," he observes, challenging our deeply held belief that everything depends on our constant motion.

Is this just another self-help tome destined for the graveyard of good intentions? Maybe. But there's something compelling about Comer's vision of a life unshackled from the tyranny of hurry. When he writes, "Hurry is violence to the soul," it's hard to dismiss the cost of our collective frenzy.