Why Are We Impatient With Time?

Impatience with time is a modern psychological issue. We tend to be impatient for things to happen. It goes from impatience with how a career is growing to impatience with car drivers who seem to be too slow.

What is our relationship with time and how does it affect our lives? In Nature, everything develops with pace. We evolve to be better adapted human beings over thousands of years. It takes time for our genes to evolve and yet each generation that improves themselves creates stronger genes for the next generation.

Why Are the Young Job Hopping?

It is a phenomena that the Millennial generation is changing jobs each three years. This is in contrast to a few generations ago when people were farmers for life or at a single company for life. Why did people accept their situation in the past and are not accepting it now?

Has improved global communications and speed by which we can communicate put the metal to the pedal in all phases of our lives? We used to mail our communications. Now if people don’t respond to an email in an hour, someone is judging whether to do business with that person.

Now email is often too slow and people realize that texting is likely to be quicker in that everyone is addicted to carrying and checking cell phones. Did the cell phone become the instrument of our impatience? We send a communication now and we know that it arrives at the recipients device. We know this speeds up reaction time.

Our Environment is Pressuring Us to Accelerate

We see enticing advertisements and media on how successful people are acquiring material goods and our brain says we want that. Each day we are pummeled with glorious opportunities to travel and have experiences. We are watching people have these experiences non-stop in social media. Hi, this is Robert sending pictures from Rome or this is me traveling on the Seine.

We can’t help but get pumped up from the opportunities that abound which we can’t experience now because we are working. We become impatient with waiting for slow progress while life is going on so fast around us. We feel the need to accomplish more in a day and more in a year.

Does the Lead Go to the Swift?

There is great competition between providers of goods and services to be the selected one. We can get most anything we need in a day. Why has the pace of delivery been accelerated? It feeds our desire to experience something new now. We don’t have to wait to get a happiness buzz.

We also expect perfection in everything. This is the age of guarantees and refunds. If it isn’t perfect or doesn’t meet our expectations, we want our money back. This places great stress on all providers from restaurants to luxury cars. Everything must be perfect and meet accelerating expectations to keep pace with those providers who can deliver beyond our expectations. This places great pressure on everyone working to satisfy consumers.

Providers are willing to pay for the best workers in a shortage of skilled workers. This raises the opportunity to move around and find those providers that will pay the most for our skills. The faster we climb the ladder, the sooner we can start enjoying all those luxury goods and experiences.

Evaluating Our Lives vs Time

How do we look at our lives in light of this fast paced experience of continuously having greater expectations? We become impatient with things that move too slow including our careers. Including other drivers or restaurant service or delivery. We have pumped up adrenal systems that are over revved and causing us stress.

Now we are caught in the throes of work life balance because the pace of everything demands we don’t rest. There is more to do. We have to get it done in ever shorter time spans to meet the pace of competition. Money also has a time value because it becomes worth less as time goes on. What costs a million today will cost two million soon.

What we don’t learn today will be passe in a year and we will be further behind until there will be no use for us. The necessary learning curve has gotten very fast. Start ups talk about the need to fail fast to learn quicker. Keeping up the pace of learning has put great pressure on everyone. Staying at a job where one has maximized their skills starts to create pressure to move where more can be learned.

Aaah for Some Free Time

We are on a treadmill that keeps accelerating. We find free time is at a premium. The great saying that the rich have money and the wealthy have time has some significance these days. The fact that some people will now accept less money to have more free time is a significant statement about the pace having reached its zenith.

The desire to be a vagabond or an entrepreneur has significance. Since everything can test who we are, why not take the short cut and become an independent who places themselves on the line everyday to feel the thrill of daily experiences. Instead of just trying for bigger paychecks, why not get to the essence and find out who we are instead, pass or fail.

Time has pressured us to find more meaning in life. We understand the grind and may rebel. We might prefer to search for why we are here and who we are. We look for passion instead of just paychecks. In fact, we have learned that unless we have passion, we might not be bringing enough to the table. Our most competitive tool may be “going all in”.

Now we evaluate the meaning of time and how to make each moment more precious. We seem to be beyond waiting things out and much more into making things happen. We feel the need to be more productive about everything. We want to be healthier, more skilled, more advanced, more independent, and more alive. We want experiences. The pace has pressured us into looking to make each moment more purposeful. Of course, time has not changed only our relationship to it.

Lifestyle Posts:

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Making Gratitude a Primary Goal

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Fitness Changes Your Life

How Important is Spirituality in Your Lifestyle?

Is Job Hunting More Important than Life Hunting?

Lifestyles that Prioritize Fitness and Happiness

Self-Actualization as a Primary Goal

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Gratitude should be a primary goal. It changes the orientation of our lifestyle from working to do lists and pursuing goals that may take time to feeling happy each day with where we are. It is the ultimate “be here now” feeling. It can be part of every day with our choice. Gratitude is thoughts and we can have them now. Take an inventory. Take it several times a day and especially when you are troubled or feeling sorry for yourself. Learn how to make it a daily practice and change your days dramatically.

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Happiness is more achievable than most people realize. It is not as complicated was we seem to learn when we are young. We can have it right away without first achieving some life goal. Learn more Available on Amazon as E-Book for $2.99 or Paperback for $6.95

Read my new book Self-Leadership. It is about time management and how to create a life that is meaningful to you and will make you more productive and employable at the same time. Available on Amazon. E-Book for $2.99. Paperback for $6.95