Armchair Pundits

The Nano-Second Culture

My wife, the fetching Mrs. Squirrel, and I have done some planning for this summer. We have decided that from May through September, we will guard our family’s schedule. Through scientific analysis, we have discovered that a schedule will always tend toward its natural state of being full. O.k., there was no scientific analysis, but schedules do tend to fill up quickly. And, it doesn’t take long for our family to spend all our time running from one event to the next. But, not this summer. We have drawn a line in the sand.

We have decided to limit the number of activities that we will commit to. We are going to reclaim our schedule and have an enjoyable summer. To me, the perfect way to spend a summer’s evening is sitting on the back deck, sipping on a glass of lemonade, and watching the children frolic in the yard, while a warm breeze hums a Stephen Foster medley as it blows through the tree branches. If that image doesn’t lower your blood pressure a few points, you need to consult your physician.

A note to our friends: we will still get together with you. Actually, this might make the time we spend with our friends better, in that we won’t be so hurried and harried from an over-crowded schedule.

Our decision goes against the nano-second culture in which we now live. At work, we send documents via FedEx, because the mail is just too slow and we send documents via email, because FedEx is just too slow. At home, we cook our food in a microwave, because a conventional oven is just too slow. We have fast food restaurants in order to get our food quicker and the fast food restaurant has a drive-up window to save you from wasting the time it takes to get out of your car to pick up the food. Everything in our culture seems to be geared toward speed. But, the time saved through the use of these wonderful innovations is not used to expand our leisure time. Instead, the additional time is filled with more activities. In the nano-second culture, life is more hectic than ever.

Now it is not that all those events that could fill our schedule are bad. Most are very good and also interesting. But, the time has now come in the life of our family when we have to do a little cost-benefit analysis. Does the cost (the time, the hectic running from event to event) outweigh the benefit (the interaction with friends, the interest in the subject matter)? Our family has determined that the cost is too great.

This is not a call for a Luddite revolution. This is a call for a spring cleaning. Our lives, like our homes are filled with clutter. It is time to take a few moments and weed through all those activities and involvements. Determine what is important and keep those activities. Let go of the activities that are cluttering up the closets and selves in your life.

I have been doing a lot of this lately in my own life. I have a variety of interests. I am discovering, however, that I need to cut back on my involvement in certain activities in order to focus my energies on a smaller number of specific activities. Take volleyball, for instance. I love volleyball and I always will. But I have not played competitively since I have moved to the Cities three years ago. I have also aged three more years and I’m not sure my body could take the beatings that I once used to put it through. So, I have come to the conclusion that my days of playing competitive volleyball are over. You heard it here first. I don’t have the time to play any more and physically, I don’t think I could play at the level that I once did. Instead, I intend to focus on my golf game, which is in desperate need of some focused attention. I also have a lengthy reading list that I would like to work on, in addition to a few personal projects that are still being formulated in my head.

I am looking forward to a very enjoyable summer.

posted by Squirrel @ 9:38 PM