Let’s chill out!

If I’ve noticed a change in anything over the years, it has been an ever increasing need for speed and not far removed from impatience!

Take the car. Whilst driving along the M25 on my way to Southampton the other day, we suddenly met with a really bad downpour. I moved into the slow lane and because of that flow, was doing about 65mph.
Although visibility was very poor, still cars drove past, some probably in excess of 80mph.
Just one car to have to have a problem causing cars behind needing to brake and goodness knows what the result would have been.

Why did they need to go so fast, is life worth that kind of gamble, then if you get it wrong, it could be innocents you take with you. Strange behaviour – and very selfish.

It seems we have this trait of thinking that every other car driver, every car in the queue at the Traffic Lights is personally against us and they’re invading our space.

What it probably is that we leave doing anything til the last possible minute and don’t allow that every road isn’t going to be completely clear and every Traffic Light isn’t going to be green.

Why do we leave it til the last minute? Because we want to view those extra few pages on the net before we leave home, because we want to just see the end of a news item on the TV, or we’ve just got up too late and are on catch up.

The need for speed doesn’t just stop at driving and transport in general; Windows 7 made a big thing about the fact it will start your PC up XX seconds faster than your previous Operating System. Cars are sold on facts such as ‘0 – 100mph in 11.6 seconds’ when they know full well it’s against the law to go that speed anyway!

The fastest to boil kettle, the higher wattage Microwave to cook quicker, the fastest to put up Tent – the list is endless.
Items sold with headlines including ‘quickest’, ‘instant’, ‘no more waiting’, all theses all so common.

Now, there’s no great sin in wanting things quicker if it gives us more time to do more constructive things, but it seems to be taking away the art of relaxation and taking life as it comes. Too many are suffering from heart problems at ever younger ages and most of this is down to the stress and speed of life and / or eating what is quickest rather eating what is best.

I’m sure there’s a link between this need for speed, basically ‘want’ with the poor financial situation of many. We don’t want to wait til we can afford it, we want it now, almost at any cost.
This need has led to more expenditure using Credit facilities and what happens then is that the item we purchased is already out of date before we’ve finished paying for it.

Banks will dish out the money freely it seems, but when you have a problem with the payments, will they understand and help? usually not.

We are here for but a short time and many of us less than what seems fair, maybe we need to use that time to sit and think once in a while and see where we are going and if there’s such a need for speed to get there!!

I know I want to be here for as long as I possibly can, but that’s more than likely already been determined by how I’ve lived for the last 62 years. It would be nice if I’d have felt the same things about 20 years into that!

As always, I see a lot of myself in things I write!!