Angry World: Could it be the Constant RUSHING We all Have to Do?

I went to the supermarket today, and I found myself pausing for a moment to observe the people around me.

It was a typical Saturday afternoon; most of the people there being off work for the weekend and yet there was this pervasive undercurrent of intensity and busy-ness about the whole scene, and people seemed irritable and angry because they were rushing; seemingly because they were "on their way to something else" or somewhere else.

Sitting in the car in the parking lot afterwards, I found myself thinking about the strange juxtaposition of an angry world where people are always feeling rushed, and the constant marketing messages to slow down and meditate and do yoga and live in the moment and enjoy what is around us.

I often ponder that age old question of "why can't we all just get along," and much of the time it feels like the reason people aren't getting along is because they're angry and irritable — because, after all, who wants to be around somebody angry and irritable — because they are in too much of a hurry to genuinely connect and respond to each other... and it just seems like we have this huge gap between what we ostensibly want, and what we can effectively actually have.

Here in the USA, there has long been an issue that people don't have a great grasp on: the work/life balance and the outcome is that an awful lot of people live to work rather than work to live.

That aside, even when we're not working it seems like we're so busy trying to cram the maximum amount of "recreational everything;" life experience and stuff and events and happenings into our limited time that we are once again rushing from one thing to another to such an extent that we scarcely have time to actually enjoy any of the things we participate in. "Time off" ends up feeling like a chore, rather than actual time off...

Perhaps the thing I find a little bothersome about all of it is that we have reached a point where even play is a structured thing and we've actually become stressed out over our play because we're scheduling it, rather than simply enjoying it.

On a personal level, perhaps I struggle somewhat less with this dilemma than many because I am — from nature's side —equipped with what you might call a bit of a "loafing personality." I'm perfectly content to just sit around and not do terribly much other than watch the birds and the sunset while drinking a glass of wine. I don't fear that I am missing something because I am not eternally in motion.

But why the rush? Are we that trapped in our fears — in this case a bad case of FOMO related to not being part of absolutely everything in our surroundings?

Here's the thing: I'm really not worried about getting to the end of my life and somehow not winning the contest of who had more experiences. I am more interested in the quality and intensity of the experiences I did choose to have. And I don't think I can possibly get the quality and depth I desire by rushing through everything.

And I don't seek to "end the game" with the largest pile of toys. I just want a few toys that I had time to really play with. Figuratively speaking!

That said, I live in a society that almost makes it a default requirement to rush. There are a lot of times when I would rather do something enjoyable but instead I find I have to run around like a crazy fool because if I don't... well I can't pay my bills and I can't get these fundamental benefits, and I can't do that... and so forth, and so on.

Meanwhile — at a much greater story arc level — we have this idea that the Industrial Revolution was supposed to help humankind work less by mechanizing/automating many aspects of work. And yet... we didn't end up with more leisure time, we ended up being enslaved by the machines we built, and ended up working more than ever.

Now we live in this soon-to-be post industrialized, AI driven universe, and I can't help but wonder whether the fact that we increasingly have to forego a chance to read an actual long book so that we can instead focus on 256-character tweets and 20-second TikTok reels is merely a sign of things to come; a world of "shortening" in which we rush like crazy in the virtual world in order to continue to put more and more "experiences" into our lives without having the time to actually enjoy them.

Circling back to where I started this train of thought, it's a small wonder that people are irritable! And with being irritable as a starting point, it's a small wonder they end up getting angry with each other!

Frankly, my choice to get off that particular roller coaster and create my own set of circumstances — even if the result is that there are certain kinds of hardships to deal with because it doesn't fit into the mold designed to "maximize" life — seems like a relatively healthy and sane one.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Sunday!

How about you? Do you feel like you have to rush too much? Do you think people in general feel rushed too much? Does having to rush make you feel irritable? Or have you made a conscious decision to slow down your life? Or is this not even an issue, in your country? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.03.02 23:35 PST
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