Inconvenient Conveniences

You notice how much easier life has gotten lately? We have cell phones that we keep with us at all times in case we need to call someone. We have laptops with wireless internet so we can go virtually anywhere to check our e-mail. Almost all gaming companies are trying to make portable games so we don't need to be confined to our living room or bedroom to play our favorite games.

We've got MP3 Players, CD players, Portable Radios, Microwaves, GPS, Drive-Thrus, Palm Computers, Dish Washers, and many more conveniences that help us get through everyday life a little easier and a little faster. Everyone's all for moving through life faster, easier and sooner. As a result, we are making better cars, better homes, better computers, stronger medicine so we can live longer and healthier. But for what? People zoom through everyday as fast and as efficient as possible, but they never take a break. When they get a free spot in their schedule they just fill it with more schedule.

You wake up. Turn off the alarm. Head to the bathroom. Take a shower, making sure to use the high pressure nozzle to blast those little buggers off. Get out. Dry yourself with a blow dryer while brushing your teeth with an auto-brush. Put on the clothes you picked out last night. Head into the kitchen. Grab a cup of coffee as a quick 'wake up' call. Grab your breakfast, the same hot pocket as the last six months. Put 'breakfast' in the microwave. Take your vitamin pills to replace what you don't have time to eat. Grab breakfast. Head out the door. Hop in the car. Take the interstate to work, while eating said breakfast. Stay there only as long as you have to, God forbid the boss 'grants' you overtime. Take the same interstate home. Call your father along the way to wish him a happy birthday, making sure to use the hands free head set. Grab dinner on the way, thank God for inventing fast food, since you skipped lunch. Come home. Hop online to complain to your Net-Friends about how much your day sucked. Grab another cup of coffee. Finish the project you were working on all day. Stick your cups in the dishwasher. Set up your clothes for the next day. And go to bed, setting the alarm for five hours from now.

This is the weekday of someone living in the city. This an extreme case of No Free Time. Most people think it is confined to city life, that if you move out to the lesser known towns, the suburbs, or even buy your own farm, that you'll get away from all of this. But that's not true. A lot of people living outside of the cities experience the same day to day lives, but in a different way. They use laptops to do their work so they don't have to be at home. They take the bus so they can run the laptop without needing to see the road in front of them. They listen to their MP3 Players, CD Players or Radios so they can get in some entertainment to neutralize the boredom of their work. They usually don't have the time to eat breakfast, take a vitamin pill, or even take a shower most of the time.

People around the world are moving so fast, trying to do so much, that humanity as a whole is slowly choking itself with its own progress. We're trying to cram so much into a day, so much into our minds that we don't know how to do anything else. Children are soon going to be taught two languages from the moment they enter school, just to keep up, and some already do. What we need to learn how to do, more than anything else, is to slow down.

People need to learn how to take time off to enjoy life. Take a vacation and just go somewhere. Don't plan it out around what needs to be done, just go. Drive. Ride. Run. It doesn't matter how it happens, just go. Forget about everything that must be done and concentrate on doing nothing. Relax a little and let everything go. If you're worried about progress, think about this, the best way to gain a clear perspective is to back away and let everything focus. People are supposed to smell the flowers that they plant. Just take some time to enjoy what mankind has done, rather than waste your time coming up with the next best thing that no one will take the time to enjoy. If you have children, take a vacation with them. You'll grow as a family, you'll start to enjoy life and you'll all be healthier and live a lot longer, while being happy.

This has been somewhat of a long post, but it needed to be said. All the 'conveniences' that we use and abuse only serve to get you to the next minute faster. Every inch of the way is packed with time savers that allow you to use more time savers. Just slow down, take a breath, get to know people, go to new places. Enjoy life before it passes you by, just to get to the next generation.