Dying young, but never growing up
Fife Paris
May 11, 2005
A foreign exchange student who stayed with my family one year observed with interest the speed at which Americans go. Got to work. Go to play. Always going, and so fast. This from a citizen of that country fabled for its severe work ethic, Japan.
My, Americans are in a hurry. The elderly of our own population can be counted on to observe the speed with which the newest generations move. My, youngsters are in a hurry. All of us are in a hurry. Some invisible clock the size of a continent hangs over America, its steady ticking of the minutes in our ears as we rush to and fruom every engagement.
Is this a bad thing? If we were merely rushing on the roads from one destination to another, maybe not; but what we're rushing to and through so frantically are the events and activities once we reach our destinations - life goals, the college experience, even relationships, everything on a tight schedule.
Beside taking the fun out of a lot of it, American's new obsession to do everything before middle age is a mental and physical strain. Countless people are at such an extreme from early on that their doctors actually prescribe yoga and alternative medicine gurus (it should raise eyebrows when M.D.s are sending you to their archnemisis holistics) to re-teach them how to relax. They need certified counselors to help them sort out why their seemingly full lives are unsatisfying and eternally stressful, to teach them how to enjoy and savor.
Americans have always been the go-getters of the industrial world. Our hustle and move-it attitude is nothing new. But the MOTIVATION has changed. In time past we wanted to be on top, to keep up with our adrenaline and inspiration, to win, to conquire, to achieve! Now the story behind two in three people rushing (often to places they don't even want to be, but rush out of habit) is that their entire plotted-out life resembles a weekend to-do list.
If you're going to do this or that it must be now, now, before graduation, before twenty, before thirty, before marriage. It used to be one was considered old when he reached a certain chronological age, say fifty or sixty. Now we've come to consider ourselves old when we cease to be in a rush, when we fail to do everything as early as the rest of the population. Keeping up with one's age group, that's the motivation behind today's haste, like we're all dreading some nation-wide high school reunion at which the timeline of our accomplishments will be compared to others our age.
And is that no differnt than the bandwagon of fashion and fad? More dangerous, I say. Fashion merely requires one to change clothes frequently; this newer, desperate need to accomplish as quickly and as much as the rest of one's graduating class means rearranging the priorities of life itself! Dating by fourteen years old lest you be late getting into a solid relationship, independence before eighteen, travel by twenty, financially on your way up by twenty three... Even the artists and musicians, the fabled "wild spirits" of our society, are strapping themselves into the ludicrous pursuit of getting what they want NOW at the price of enjoying it.
Are we so conditioned, needing to "fit in," that we're willing to chase dewadlines when making the most iportant decisions in our lives? Well! Are we going to grow up sometime soon, or is that not on the list?
My, Americans are in a hurry. The elderly of our own population can be counted on to observe the speed with which the newest generations move. My, youngsters are in a hurry. All of us are in a hurry. Some invisible clock the size of a continent hangs over America, its steady ticking of the minutes in our ears as we rush to and fruom every engagement.
Is this a bad thing? If we were merely rushing on the roads from one destination to another, maybe not; but what we're rushing to and through so frantically are the events and activities once we reach our destinations - life goals, the college experience, even relationships, everything on a tight schedule.
Beside taking the fun out of a lot of it, American's new obsession to do everything before middle age is a mental and physical strain. Countless people are at such an extreme from early on that their doctors actually prescribe yoga and alternative medicine gurus (it should raise eyebrows when M.D.s are sending you to their archnemisis holistics) to re-teach them how to relax. They need certified counselors to help them sort out why their seemingly full lives are unsatisfying and eternally stressful, to teach them how to enjoy and savor.
Americans have always been the go-getters of the industrial world. Our hustle and move-it attitude is nothing new. But the MOTIVATION has changed. In time past we wanted to be on top, to keep up with our adrenaline and inspiration, to win, to conquire, to achieve! Now the story behind two in three people rushing (often to places they don't even want to be, but rush out of habit) is that their entire plotted-out life resembles a weekend to-do list.
If you're going to do this or that it must be now, now, before graduation, before twenty, before thirty, before marriage. It used to be one was considered old when he reached a certain chronological age, say fifty or sixty. Now we've come to consider ourselves old when we cease to be in a rush, when we fail to do everything as early as the rest of the population. Keeping up with one's age group, that's the motivation behind today's haste, like we're all dreading some nation-wide high school reunion at which the timeline of our accomplishments will be compared to others our age.
And is that no differnt than the bandwagon of fashion and fad? More dangerous, I say. Fashion merely requires one to change clothes frequently; this newer, desperate need to accomplish as quickly and as much as the rest of one's graduating class means rearranging the priorities of life itself! Dating by fourteen years old lest you be late getting into a solid relationship, independence before eighteen, travel by twenty, financially on your way up by twenty three... Even the artists and musicians, the fabled "wild spirits" of our society, are strapping themselves into the ludicrous pursuit of getting what they want NOW at the price of enjoying it.
Are we so conditioned, needing to "fit in," that we're willing to chase dewadlines when making the most iportant decisions in our lives? Well! Are we going to grow up sometime soon, or is that not on the list?
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