What's Your Hurry?

Why is the world in such a rush? Anything that takes more than a few minutes is considered not important. Quick is one of our favorite words. I want a quick answer to how often you patronize a quick food place. Or maybe you are the kind that needs a quick fix for anything that ails you. One of our local restaurants is even called Quick Dine.

When the weeks roll by as quickly as they do, why do we want to rush everything? My computer is not very new. Our computer friend tells me that if I got a different model or had a different program installed I would get much quicker action.

Hey! A decade ago if I wrote this article I would have written it on my Big Indian Tablet and then corrected everything in pencil before I took it to the typewriter to type. I wanted to be careful not to make any mistakes because erasing a typo didn't look professional and white-out just emphasized that this lazy typist wanted a quick fix for her error.

After I got it in proper form, then I would have to drive to town to take it to the editor of the paper. She then had to have someone else retype it or set it in type, whatever their system called for.

Today I merrily type away knowing that I can go back and delete, insert, use the spell check, change the format or add decorations with a touch of a key. After it meets my approval, I touch a few more keys and it is sent to the editor. Then just to be sure, I print a copy for my own use and run it through the printer to fax the copy to the editor.

I haven't left my chair and I spent about an hour, including the time it took to compose the essay in the first place.

So why do I need anything that is any faster? If the images appeared on the screen a second quicker than they do on my machine, what would I do with that second that was so valuable? I could use it to get my grandson's e-mail activated to see if his wife had sent anymore pictures of our new great-granddaughter. If I find some I will have to put them aside for another time when I have more time. I don't want to just take a quick look.

A commercial advertising computers portrays a poor child coming home from school so dejected because she didn't do well on a paper. The ad proclaims that she couldn't compete because her computer was so slow. When the family upgraded their equipment she skips home with an A.

Now listen! Unless her old computer took two sticks rubbed together to make it work, she could do the same work, a bit more leisurely of course. Speed doesn't make her any smarter. In fact I wonder if it doesn't do the opposite sometimes.

One of the things we have lost in this hurryupandgetitdone age is the feeling that we can take the time to stop and figure something out for ourselves.

I could go on with other examples but I have to make a cake to take to church tomorrow. I hope I have a box of cake mix because I don't have time to make it from scratch. I probably will stop and buy a can of frosting at the store on the way to church tomorrow. I hardly ever make my own icing anymore.