Yesterday in a client session we were talking about stress, workload and whether it is positive or negative. If you haven't noticed, everyone you know is good at handling stress until they aren't. I know people who while they are on stress leave still claim they are good at handling stress and assume that it was that their workload was the problem.
The uncomfortable issue here is that there is usually a person that sits beside them and does the exact same job with an identical workload but, isn't on stress leave. Most people of course don't think about preparing for stress until they are already under it, too late.
But, the conversation progressed from there and went into the area of younger (my clients were in their 50s) generations and their tendencies for instant gratification and impatience as well as the sense of entitlement to privileges they are yet to earn. But, how could they really be any other way when speed of all things is now so fast?
Depending on how old you are, you might remember waiting for an image to download on the internet, a letter to arrive in the mail, a boat to arrive from another country. Speed of everything has increased massively in every area of our lives and information is always available at the fingertips now. Questions that required patience to get an answer no longer do so to the point that people can't even make it through a 30 minute show without googling what other show is that actor from?
If someone doesn't respond to a Whatsapp message in a few minutes, they are considered inconsiderate whereas my father would have waited months for international letters to be sent and then arrive back on the letterbox for even the simplest of things. We have made information and service so fast across so many areas that the skill of patience has degraded to the point where people are unable to control themselves if their desires aren't satisfied immediately.
We can see the consequences of this when it comes to all areas of life whether it be developing a relationship, repairing a relationship or breaking up. People move in fast, fight fast, leave fast. We can see it in traffic situations with the increase of road rage. We can see it in the violent outbursts and crimes of passion. We can see it in the entitlement attitudes of getting pay rises and the seed at which people lose interest with their jobs or, the latest trends. We see it in the expectation of how fast the blockchain industry should grow or mainstream. We see it in how frustrated people get if Steem goes down for 12 hours.
We have connected progress of society so heavily to the speed at which things happen that our cognitive abilities to understand time itself have warped and, our emotional ability to maintain composure in anticipation has fallen off a cliff. No matter how complex a project or industry may be, they are expected to advance ever faster to satisfy an ever growing hunger for more and more and more.
We have created a society of toddlers going through their terrible twos crying, kicking and screaming in the shop and demanding their parents buy them the candy that is so conveniently placed a t eye level for a two year old. The problem is that due to the way we monetize the populace by continually enabling and feeding the addictive compulsions, most are never going to grow up.
Delayed gratification is the number one skill to developing a strong position for the future because it allows the opportunity to work, save and build the foundation now that becomes the future's base. It is also the skill that has been ripped out of the human psyche by the plethora of ways we are targeted to satisfy a bottom line somewhere. Credit cards, payment terms, access speeds, on-demand services, instant notifications, push messages, mobile access to all information, news cycles, 24-hour shopping, overnight delivery...
The speed of service means there is no chance for the cool-down period of the past, the chance to not instant gratify through impulse purchases. There is no space for the compelled and excited mind to ask the question, Do I really need this, do I even want it? It is so easy to satisfy the material needs.
The funny thing is that when it comes to anything that requires investment, effort, energy, planning; people wait. People wait to start that new hobby, wait to learn that skill, wait to start saving for the future, wait to get a job, go to the gym, eat better... Instant gratify in the meaningless, avoid the meaningful.
We all suffer from this in some way, we all want what we want and we want it as fast as we can possibly get it but, when it comes to large scale projects and significant changes to society or personal position, rarely is anything going to happen as instantaneously as we have come to expect. The myriad advertisements that promise overnight success, the shills on Youtube, the out of nowhere stars born, the endless news stories of instant rich through lotteries and luck are cherry picked half-truths. They do happen but for the vast majority of whatever you might identify as a successful person, it is a consistent and conscientious effort over long periods of time.
What this means is that we have developed a global community of people who do not hold the necessary skills for successful independent living. They will always be reliant on others for their needs because they are unable to invest themselves long enough to be able to provide for themselves. It s a culture designed to work on credit and live in a continual debt cycle that slowly screws downward reducing opportunity for many while creating massive upward growth for a few.
You know that annoying child in the back of the car that keeps asking, Are we there yet? They are only in that position because they are unable to drive themselves. If they did have the skills, if they were at the wheel, they would know that they weren't there and they would know why they aren't there yet because it takes time to travel distance, whether it is to the local shop, another city or another country.
It takes time to develop a world shifting technology, it takes time to make it ubiquitous, it takes time to fix bugs, it takes time to create anything of value. If we aren't the ones doing it ourselves though, we do not understand this which makes it seems that all these things that happen, happen quickly and we undervalue the work of all the people involved for years on end to get anything of substance built at all.
What I have found is that the most impatient people in this world are the ones who have always had everything at their fingertips, buy their desires and expect availability of what they want, when they want it. They are the spoiled children, the inheritance generations. They are the consumers, not the creators, the passengers, not the drivers.
We all learn things from our environment that we can use as excuses for how we behave but, that doesn't mean we have to behave that way. The world has been set up to support status quo, what changes that isn't a vote for a politician, it is the movement of the many. It takes a lot of time yet most are much too impatient to be able watch a movie to the end without picking up their phone and turning their attention to consume something else.
In every generation though, some will move. Is that us?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
