The Speed of the World

Last week at the Atlanta airport, a lady sitting beside me asked if she could borrow my cell phone to call her daughter; she and her husband had been in China for two weeks and because of their long flight home, her phone’s battery was totally drained. “You don’t realize how much you depend on your phone till you don’t have it,” she said. Her husband mentioned his old AT&T calling card (remember those?), and how he hadn’t used it in years.

Someone at work was talking about how many e-mail messages they had in their inbox, and how hard it was to keep up. We have too much to do and not enough people to get it all done. I get so many messages now, I don’t really have time to think or evaluate—I just respond and move on. Things are coming at me so fast, efficiency goes out the window. I don’t have time to think about the best way to do whatever I’m working on; I just have time to get it done as quickly and simply as possible. And I hate this.

I’m all for technology (a couple of friends call me a techno junkie). I’ve seen a lot of changes in my day (hang on for old-lady mode): I remember having to get up and turn the knob on the TV to change channels, or having to rotate the antenna for better reception. I remember having one phone in the house, and it was anchored to the wall. I remember having to stop at a gas station or looking for a pay phone if you wanted to call someone while you were traveling. Now a lot of people don’t even have home phones anymore—they just use their cell phone for everything. Now it’s almost odd to see someone driving who ISN’T using a cell phone. We used to have to wait for information to come in the mail; now we get it instantly via text message, IM or e-mail on our cell phone or PDA.

Quicker can be good. If you need to stop for something on your way home, it’s better to find that out before you actually get home and then have to leave again. If someone needs us, all they have to do is call—no more waiting for Lassie to go and get help. (Just for the record, Lassie is before my time.) The speed at which we can receive information now can definitely be a good thing.

But … and you know it was coming … it’s not always a good thing. In the words of race car driver Mario Andretti: “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” Speed can be good, but it can also make us lose control. That’s how I feel. I don’t have time to think anymore, and I need to think. Otherwise, it’s like eating without chewing, and it gives me indigestion in my soul.

Also, I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes waiting can be a good thing. If you happen to be an impatient person, getting things faster just fuels your impatience. Not that I have any personal experience with that or anything. I find myself standing in front of the microwave, going “Come on, come on!” Remember when we actually cooked? I eat microwave meals a lot because when you’re cooking for just one person, you have leftovers that last forever, but it doesn’t take that much time to actually make a meal.

The speed of life warps my perspective on life. One of the reasons why I love being outside with Bailey is because I have time to process and catch my breath. She’s slowed down a couple of notches from her puppy speed of go-go-go, and after she’s been out and run around a bit, she’s ready to park it on the back porch and just sit a while. Me too. Much like the cows out in the pasture, I like to ruminate. I chew on what happened, what it means, how I feel about it. I’ve always been this way. I remember being about 8 and climbing up into the hay loft in my grandfather’s barn to sit and think.

Anybody else need to slow down every once in a while? You know what they say—speed kills.

What do YOU want?

Sometimes I feel like this, especially on Mondays.