How did we ever let ourselves get so busy? Whatever happened to downtime? ...silence? real rest and relaxation?
Before the cellphones, Internet, cable TV, mp3 players, etc. we actually survived vast stretches of life incommunicado. Remember when driving somewhere in your car meant no one could reach you? When leaving the workplace meant leaving the boss, your co-workers, and the stresses of your job behind until the next day? When payphones were a necessity in case you had an emergency? Remember what silence sounds like? How is what we have today an improvement.
When did our jobs become 24/7 affairs? When did the entire nation go "on call" like a gynecologist with pregnant patients? What's the point? Why the rush? Why the urgency? We're stressed out, burned out, running around like madmen, ignoring the familys we cherish and the dreams we have to feed the tyranny of the urgent. We're so busy making money we don't have anything of value left to spend it on (and we're certainly not taking it with us?)
Somewhere along the way we bought into a lie that this was the American Dream...the good life? Does this really seem good to you? We've got more toys, which serve to distract us from the fact that we have less life. We've got short, tiny little spans of attention...taking our news in soundbites and elevating celebrity, and everything else superficial and disposable, to significance while we ignore everything that really matters. We grow more self-serving, impatient, inattentive, restless, tired and in debt.
Meanwhile our Founding Fathers, men who probably knew something of the American Dream... men who, for the most part, were of some status and wealth, risked all of that to break from the tyranny of the crown. You don't risk wealth and status to pursue the dream of wealth and status. That's contradictory. Now we're chasing a cheap imitation of the American Dream. In the words of Pogo, "I have seen the enemy and it is us." We've gone full circle...from fighting the tyranny of the crown to gain freedom, to sacrificing our freedom and surrendering to the tyranny of the urgent! Where's the modern day Paul Revere? If only it were just the British who were coming. Unfortunately, it's worse than that. It is ourselves!
