The Fast Pace of Life

I have a friend who, when he calls me, is always doing something else at the same time. Either he's driving as he's talking on his cell phone, which I think is a bad idea; or he's shopping, so that what he's saying to me is interspersed with his comments to someone in the store; or he's doing something that makes crashing noises, thus affronting my eardrums on this end of the phone.

I've asked him why he can't call me while he's just sitting at home and not doing anything else. He said, Yeah, his grandmother would just sit and talk on the phone. He doesn't have the time to just talk on the phone, he has to use what time he's got to take care of more than one thing.

And of course the compulsion to multi-task is not unique to my friend. I have seen how common it is, and you have, too. I once worked for a man who would be doing at least three, sometimes four things at once: talking to me as well as someone else in his office, fielding phone calls, receiving delivery of a suit. I know it would simply make me nuts if I tried doing that.

Another time I was at Starbucks and a young woman came in and made her coffee purchase, all the while talking on her cell phone. Once she left, besides having her coffee to drink, she lit a cigarette, got in her car, and drove off —and might have still been engaged in her phone conversation. How do you manage all that: the phone, the coffee, the cigarette, plus driving the car? Well, first you set the coffee down on the roof of the car while you unlock the door. . . .

Yes, like my friend, people—at least people younger than I am—feel that they are not using their precious time efficiently if they are not doing more than one thing at once. Think what this means. We all feel so much pressure, we feel we haven't got enough of time in our day. We can't even imagine idleness.

And we not only must busy ourselves with multiple tasks at once, anything we accomplish must be executed quickly. Take driving. Anyone who drives can see how so many drivers clearly are in a hurry. Drive like crazy, even if you're hurrying to get to that red light up ahead! (Note to drivers: you're wasting gas by doing that.) In the downtowns of big cities, people walk real fast: hurry to get to work on time, hurry to get back from lunch on time, hurry to catch your commuter train home. Woe be to him who has to cross the surging stream of humanity or worse, try to swim upstream!

There is an expression in Italian, dolce far niente, meaning It's sweet to do nothing. Well, nowadays it must make people feel guilty if they have an idle moment or a moment to relax. What ever happened to taking a moment to breathe, to smell the roses, to clear your mind? To get your bearings, to reflect? I have to think that people who meditate, and maybe those whose religious practices include praying several times a day, may be on to a good thing if it just gives them a moment's pause from the hectic pace of their lives.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein