faster - faster

The pace of life seems to be ever increasing and the faster things get, the faster we demand they get. I wonder if we do ourselves a dis-service by wanting everything to happen at the speed of 4G. I am as guilty as anyone, of course, because I am not a patient person, I often find myself irritated by having to stand in line at the bank, wait at a red light, or twiddle my thumbs while my 8 year old computer boots up (yes, my phone has 16 times the memory of my computer, sad but true!). I think that this impatience is largely due to having grown up in a - what I will call - 'a microwave culture'. Almost anything you want you can have within seconds...

Let us compare the progression of some simple everyday things our grandparents did versus our timeline...

sending a letter to Nebraska - 4 days
sending an email to Nebraska in 1995 - 1 hour 20 min
sending a txt message to Nebraska today - 3 sec
not getting a response from Nebraska within 5 sec ... Arghh ... Torture

brewing a cup of coffee in 1940 - 20 min
brewing a cup of coffee in 1995 - 8 min
brewing a cup of K-cup coffee today - 25 sec
having to wait an extra 20 sec for the water heat ... Agony

finding information about your blind date in 1940 - the next 20 years
finding information about your blind date in 1995 - 3 days for a background check
finding information about your blind date now - 5 sec on FB, from your iPhone, while hiding in the bathroom
escaping your blind date ... about 2 hours of small talk - 'oh look at the time!' - and a secret text to your friend (while you were hiding in the bathroom) that they NEED to call and tell you your house is on fire!

flying to Paris in 1940 - 22.5 hours
flying to Paris in 1995 - 8 hours
flying to Paris today - 26 hours
getting through security ... 18 of those 26 hours - yeah thanks for that TSA

buying a book in 1940 - 5 days (walk to the bookstore, order the book, get it shipped from NY, walk back home - wait - walk back to the bookstore, pick up the book, walk back home)
buying a book in 1995 - 4 hours (and 65 cups of coffee)
buying a book today - what's a book??
getting back to where you were in your iBooks app after a reboot ... Eternity

making popcorn in 1940 - 10 min
making popcorn in 1995 - 5 min
making popcorn today - 2.2 min
getting the smell of burnt popcorn out of the office microwave ... Never

So as much as we expect things to happen quicker and quicker our children will be worse!
Will they even want to take the time to go outside and play? - oh wait, that is what the Wii Fit is for.
Well, how about have a talk with a friend? - talk, 'whtevr 4'
Surely they will at least have a healthy meal? - gatorade gel pack baby!!

*Sigh*
Maybe a little slower isn't so bad after all :)