The speed at which we expect everything today is almost unbelievable. We as a society want everything RIGHT NOW! We want our food instantly, we want our internet speed to be instantaneous, we want answers to questions to be given immediately, we want the news the instant it happens….

We want everything right here, right now, and the thought of waiting for anything has become almost foreign to us.

I thought about this today as I was looking up some info on the web and found that our internet connection was having serious slowness issues. I was so frustrated I almost couldn’t take it. I was sitting with one of the partners at work when the slowness began and I asked him, “Do you ever wonder how we actually functioned when our Internet speed was always this slow?” We both talked about how crazy it was that we used to have to live like that…we would search something and then wait for a minute or more to get our response…how in the world did we ever function??  Neither of us could imagine going back to a world like that.

We are so used to having everything so quickly that it has become the baseline of our expectations and anything that goes outside of that is simply unacceptable.  I can’t help but see this as both a blessing and a curse.

On the blessing side we have information and capacity to do things so much faster today which allows us to move forward more quickly and accomplish far more than we ever could before.

On the curse side we expect everything immediately which has almost trained people to accept what you can have instantly rather than working for what they truly want in life. There is also a tendency for people to be willing to trade what they want most for what they can have right now, sacrificing the things that are most important in the process.

I suppose in the end it is up to each of us personally to make the choice to embrace the blessings of instant gratification and avoid the curses. We should embrace the innovations that have brought things into our lives more quickly, but commit to not allowing ourselves to become so impatient that we would trade off the things in life we truly want by settling for something less that we can have right now.

Have a great day everyone!

~Amy