March 24, 2006

Fast-paced culture demands “instant”

By AMY BITELY
arb001@marietta.edu

I recently took a walk to Food-4-Less on a chilly Sunday morning. Traffic was fairly light at church-time in the morning, and I don’t mind the cold, but the slowness made me impatient as only the pedestrian can be, watching cars zip past. I made my way through the automatic (caution) doors of Food-4-Less at last with a single purpose: INSTANT.

Instant cocoa first grabbed my attention--I debated the various merits of Swiss Miss versus Nestle; Swiss Miss contained ten packets at 28g of mixture each, and Nestle contained twelve packets at 20g of mixture. Which won out? The instant gratification, of course! I would much rather have two fewer really good cups of hot chocolate than two more cups of brown water.

Next stop? Instant oatmeal. Quaker's maple and brown sugar blend went under my arm to keep the cocoa company. After all, sitting at the stove and boiling oatmeal, then mixing in brown sugar and maple syrup, would be too time-consuming.
Finally, I made my way down the frozen-foods aisles to grab (what else?) instant dinners. The effort required to create my own stir fry with rice is apparently too much for me.

I paid with a debit card, no cash intermediary to fill my precious seconds, and then I booked it back to my dormitory with my items all squeezed into one bag.

I got back home, flopped down in front of the computer, and proceed to waste time indiscriminately as my instant Tropical Sweet and Sour Chicken microwaved.

Sometimes, I just have to wonder if my culture is making it too easy (can anything ever be too easy?). Instant food, fast food, snappy transportation, and high-speed Internet connections mean that waiting is more or less instantly becoming a thing of the past. Don’t want to wait in line at the grocery store? Just use the self-checkout aisle. Don’t want to wait for your tax refund? Just file your taxes online. Don’t want to wait for Mr. or Ms. Right? Hop online, go to a speed-dating service, and have someone for dinner with the click of a mouse.

What’s next? Instant wine, aged thirty years in the time it takes to microwave an instant pizza? Instant artwork, pulled straight from the mind and onto the page as fast as you think it? Instant growing up, toddlers thinking the thoughts and having the feelings of a forty-year-old?

All joking aside, it’s possible--just possible--that some things in life are worth waiting for.

There is a degree of personal growth that we have to go through every time we don’t get what we want immediately. We have to train ourselves to be gracious under pressure and to have faith that a delay doesn’t deny us what we want. Take road rage, for example--a clear sign that someone is tired of waiting for the car in front to move. There are probably better coping strategies for driving impatience than harassing other drivers with a baseball bat, and they include books on tape, decent radio, and if all else fails, the License Plate Game.

For a college student who is trying to do several dozen things at once, the fastest option often seems to be the best. Instant food gives us more time to do homework (or to goof off on our computers); quick transportation means that more of our time is productive and less of it is spent getting to a productive place. Instant communication means that we never have to leave our loved ones behind, even when we’re attending college far away.

However, when we find ourselves forced to wait, we may not know how to deal with the inactivity. If we intentionally take a less “instant” approach to getting what we want, though, we force ourselves to develop our waiting skills, and we may be less likely to fly into a rage on the road.

It is possible to start small, though. For instance, I’m going to start by waiting for my microwave meal to finish cooking.
Maybe I’ll file my taxes online to pass the time.