Consider this astonishing fact: Only about two lifetimes ago, we could go no faster than the horse we were riding. Also, we rarely needed to use the word “instantly” because even when conditions favored it, few situations required it.
To compare those qualities of yesterday with those of today is nearly impossible. The faster we are, the more we encourage or force others to do the same. Those wants are eventually considered needs, a happening that spreads outwardly to seep into every aspect of daily living. Consider how profoundly “fast food” has affected the restaurant industry and how such phrases as “grab and go” are conditioning our behavior.
We have had to adapt ourselves not only to the ability of going faster, but to creating and controlling whatever mechanism or method we are using to reach those speeds. No longer satisfied in merely wanting it now, we insist on getting it now. For some of us, even overnight delivery isn’t quick enough.
Said one store employee to another about a customer who had just left, “Whew! I could almost believe that guy expected us to have it done even before he asked us to do it.”
The market responds to such behavior by emphasizing speed, regardless of what is involved. It’s as if a product or service can’t gain market share by only claiming to be simpler or easier; in some respect it must also be faster. In an effort to up the hype, real or imagined statistics are tossed around even when they mean little to nothing when applied to the result.
We talk faster and become impatient when others either won’t or can’t do the same. We walk faster even to the point of literally racing with each other to be “first” through a door. The results? Unnecessary confusion, collision, and upticks in emotional stress.
Also, and true to the adage, haste does make waste. The once ballyhooed practice of multi-tasking has been mostly abandoned because it proved what we already knew: The brain can process only one request at a time. Ignore that reality and the result is likely to be plagued with mistakes.
Our lust for speed causes us to insist it be a factor in everything we do, buy, and use. Even if not wanted or needed, it’s provided anyway, the resulting steep cost then being included in the price we pay for the product or service.
One of the best examples is the tragic fallout from simply driving a car. Speed has always been promoted as an important factor because it feeds driver ego. A new statistic included in many new car reviews is how fast the car can accelerate from zero to 60 m.p.h. For some new cars, that time is as short as four seconds, clearly a new hazard for old folks, kids, and dogs.
The once popular slogan, “Speed Kills!,” is rarely seen, yet speed is the leading cause of traffic deaths in the United States. On average, more than 350 people are killed every weekend and more than 42,000 killed every year with 1.6 million more injured — many to never walk again, be well again, live a good life again.
As if that weren’t enough of a concern, consider that drivers have always been able to use their own sense of feel with conveniently located knobs and levers to easily and safely control a number of functions. Now, however, they are being forced to take their eyes off the road while scanning a screen that then must be touched at specific places and in exact sequences.
Even if they can accomplish that in only five seconds, in the meantime and at today’s cruising speeds, their car has hurtled down almost 600 feet of highway. It’s no wonder rear end collisions account for forty percent of all accidents.
As the speed of everything continues to increase, so do the demands we place upon our minds and bodies. We don’t sleep nearly as well, are plagued with stress and anxiety, must take anti depressants to get through the day, become impatient and intolerant, and suffer from destructive or sometimes even suicidal tendencies.
That’s only part of the steep and huge price we pay for insisting that everything be done faster while attempting to keep up with everyone and everything else and prepare for whatever is coming at us with, of course, increasing speed.
Any improvement in all of this must begin with you. Be conscious of the need to slow down and when reasonable and prudent, suggest, urge, or insist others do the same. That will improve your life and maybe even save it.
A few years ago, anyone passing a certain car would have seen the following words on the car’s rear license plate frame: You should’ve left earlier.
