That's me in the photo, standing on the steps of an incredibly awe-inspiring cathedral in Barcelona. I'm traveling in Spain this week, which is giving me an opportunity to marvel at spectacular examples of Old World architecture like this everywhere I go. Walking around this city you get a real sense of mankind's rich history of producing art and architecture that can make the heart soar.
One thing that really hits home for me is when I think of the patience and commitment that was required to create a building like this. They would go through plan after plan before deciding on a final design and then – in an age before hydraulics and power tools – they would build it. By hand. Stone by stone. It was a long, long process, but they understood that greatness takes time.
So did riding an elevator in the early 1900s. One of the buildings we visited was home to an early lift – one that, at the time of its installation, took two and a half minutes to go up one floor. In today's world, we're upset if we have to wait that long for a meal at a drive-thru. But they just put in a bench where people would sit and smoke a cigar for the duration of the ride.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things I love about our world of instant communication and efficient technology. I love being able to share this story and picture from Spain, practically in real time. But there is something to be said for knowing when to slow down and let things take as long as they need to take, if that's what you have to do to get it right. When the architect of this cathedral was asked when it would be finished, his response was, “God is not in a hurry.”
Whether it's building a cathedral, or building a relationship with a patient; whether it's spending time with your kids or immersing yourself in the complexities of a big case (what Frank likes to call the “flow moment” where your sense of time melts away) – some things just can't be rushed.