Among the overarching themes of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry is a warning about the dangers of a hurried lifestyle. This is evident as early as the first chapter, in which John Mark Comer recounts a conversation between two of his mentor figures, John Ortberg and Dallas Willard (See: Key Figures), in which the latter advises that the former must “ruthlessly eliminate hurry from [his] life” (19) to become the kind of person he wants to be. Hurry is thus positioned as the great enemy of the contented life that people want to be living. By continually pushing people to fill up their schedules and move from one thing to another, the pace of life in contemporary society leaves many people feeling harried, exhausted, and empty, unable to find truly restorative rest in the midst of all of life’s demands.

Comer devotes the entirety of Part 1 to diagnosing the contours of this theme, and it recurs throughout the book as one of the root problems of modern life. He examines how Western culture has gotten to this point, driven by forces like the mechanization of timekeeping, the industrial revolution’s effects on work schedules, the development of a consumer-based economy saturated in advertising, and the seemingly endless distractions of entertainment and social media technologies.