Playing media results in spinning ball for a few seconds

It is slowing my whole workflow down obviously and trying to figure out what the problem is. Here are a few things that may help troubleshoot. Thank you so much for your infinite wisdom.

Media playback set to proxy only. I will say that the playback still looks high res.

Sequoia 15.3 mac os

Version 10.8.1 FCPX

Editing off HDD Lacie external hardrive (1.8 TB available)

Macbook Pro M3 chip, 18 GB RAM

Proxies are fully created and located in the Lacie folder as well as all the other project files

[Re-Titled by Moderator]