Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water-ballast we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide.~~Mark Twain
We live in the NOW generation. Not �in a minute�, not �as soon as I have time�, not �just let me finish this� and certainly not �can I call you back?� It�s RIGHT NOW.
I�m a baby boomer, one of the children born in the few years after World War II. It occurred to me today, as I was waiting for a call, that I have been infected with the same impatience as the X-Gen, Y-Gen and whatever the heck the others are called.
When I was young there were two ways to communicate. Type a letter on a non-electric typewriter (sometimes in duplicate, with a sheet of carbon paper between the letterhead and the flimsy second copy sheet) or sit at a table and pull out your stationery. Then address the envelope, put on a stamp, walk it to the mailbox and wait for a reply which might take a week, or even two.
The second was to pick up the telephone. But if the call was to someone outside of your city it was expensive. And early in my life you had to go through an operator to make the call. There were no �800� numbers, heck, there weren�t even area codes. My mother�s phone book was filled with modern phone numbers that started with words, like �Metro3 6789�!!
When I started working, the typewriters were electric, there were zip codes for the addresses, and the telephone numbers had area codes. Personal letters were still sent, but not as often, and hardly ever by our children unless forced to thank dear Aunt Martha for the birthday gift. Business letters still depended on paper duplicates because few businesses had things called Copiers, but we didn�t have time to wait for return letters anyway. We picked up the telephone to conduct our business and if our party was out, we knew their secretary would write up a message slip to call us back the next day.
Fast forward a few years�.we duplicated the few letters we typed with the copier, and put them in the new fax to send. Within seconds they were on the other person�s desk. Answering machines that could be accessed remotely took our messages. The expected response time to a letter or phone call dropped to same day.
Within milli-seconds (as the Calendar of Time goes) there were computers, cell phones, and instant messaging. We expect written responses within minutes, and immediate access via phone and Yahoo IM.
And find ourselves impatient if it doesn�t happen. When a web site says they have an on-line help system � I want it NOW. When I send an email to confirm a conference call I want a response before I leave my desk for lunch. When I call someone�s cell phone I expect them to answer and talk to me.
I have become a Baby Boomer member of the NOW generation. I don�t save my allowance for six months to buy a new toy. I pull out plastic and pay for it six months later. I am impatient for a call, bewildered by the lack of response to an email, indignant when a message left on a cell phone is not returned within an hour. I despise being put on hold and apoplectic when I hear �press 1 for parts, press 2 for accounting� messages, punching 0 repeatedly so a real person can give me the answer I want NOW.
And sometimes I feel the same way about life. Irrational as it sounds, I find myself expecting the same thing from my friends as I do my clients. I know the right thing to do is to take time, look around, relax, let things progress slowly and surely to the pre-destined end. Start at page one, savor the words, revel in the imagery, get caught up in the story as the characters reveal themselves little by little until, when you turn the last page of the last chapter, you cannot bear for the story to be over.
But there is this constant temptation to peek. To find out whodunit, is there a happy ending, does our hero win the girl, does she live happilyforeverafter. Don�t you sometimes wish there was an IM service for happy endings.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.~~Will Rogers
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