Are We Ever Satisfied?

Do you ever find yourself sitting at your computer, swearing under your breath for it to hurry up? Have you ever been annoyed that you can't just go down the street and purchase that perfect squash in November? Do you lose patience when someone tells you that you will have to wait or come back later?

This is the nature of life in these United States these days. We all expect immediate answers for every question. I am including myself in the "we". I can't tell you the number of times recently that I have Googled something to get an immediate answer. We don't even have to be at our computers because we can do it from our phones! The art of study and research has gone from a trip to the library to keying a few characters into a phone. Or at least that's what we all believe. We take the first answer that pops up and off we go. Hey, it's on the internet so it must have been on the tablets that Moses brought down the mountain! We are in such a hurry to move on to the next item on the list that we sometimes neglect to finish the first item, thereby doing a shoddy job of it.

When did we get in such a big hurry? What made us believe in the instant gratification we all expect? Are we ever satisfied?

The short answer is Capitalism. The much longer answer is the consumer based economy that we are a part of has resulted in the sellers being increasingly required to compete for the buyers dollars in order for their businesses to be successful. For example, do you have a smart phone? If so, why did you get it? Was there a more basic cell phone available at a much cheaper price. An on this smart phone do you get a new one only when the old one is not operational? No, if you are like me you get the newest, fastest slickest model available and the old one goes back in the box or donated to some third world country in desperate need of an obsolete smart phone. Then we are happy until the IPhone 16 comes out and we are told how much better it is than the IPhone 15. Then we go for that. You know the drill.

If you think I'm going to break out in the Karl Marx song and dance decrying the evils of capitalism you don't know me. I love the standard of living we enjoy and attribute much of it to our semi-free market system. The problem I see is we seem to have a crack-like habit associated with technology and instantaneous information that it is pushing out many of the normal parts of our lives. Human interaction for one! I find myself typing more and talking less every day. I am addicted to the phone and it is rarely out of reach. And that is expected of me, because, should I leave the house without my phone and someone calls they get annoyed when they get a voice mail. If I were a doctor I could understand it but I am a CPA for God's sake! How many accounting emergencies do you think I have to deal with daily? Exactly!

So, having arrived at this epiphany, I am going to try a little experiment over the next two weeks. I am going to use my phone only for phone calls. I am going to access social media only at home at night and not from the phone or at work. If you call and I don't answer please leave a message because I don't plan to be carrying my phone around the Courthouse. I do have land lines everywhere so I won't be totally out of touch. My absence from some discussion groups will be cheered but that's okay.   I am hoping that at the end of the two week period my productivity has increased, I have gone through the withdrawal process, and will no longer be a slave to the phone.

Will it work? Who knows? I'm not as bad as some I know but I recognize the problem so the next step is addressing it. Wish me luck!