It is the hurry

On a Friday in the desert east of Cairo, a sales tent is full. The apartments on offer do not exist yet. There is a model under glass, a stack of floor plans and a man with a microphone saying the first phase is nearly gone.

People who would spend a month choosing a second-hand car are signing deposits after twenty minutes. They have not seen the site. They have not asked who else has built here, or what happened last time. Some of them do not quite know which floor they have chosen.

It is tempting to say the apartments did this. That the deal is so good it overrode their caution. But the same flat, offered quietly in an empty office on a Tuesday, would get the questions it deserves.

What changed their judgement was the hurry. The crowd, the microphone, the sense that everyone else knows something and is acting on it. In a hurry, people trust more easily, skip checks they would normally insist on, and accept stories they would otherwise laugh at. Not because of the prize, but because standing still while others move feels like losing.

Hurry is not always the enemy. Sometimes it is the only thing strong enough to get a person past years of hesitation, into a decision they should have made long ago.

The difference is whether it was chosen. Decide, before walking into the tent, that you are willing to move fast and why. Then the hurry is a tool you are using, and not a crowd that is using you.