You begin to read a book and want to rush to the end. You are watching a movie and wish you could FF all the boring part/songs. You are watching sports/matches and sometimes wouldn’t mind just catching the highlights. You intend to give an exam and want to skip the prep effort. You are talking to someone on the phone and get irritated if they talk beside the point. You are driving a tad more aggressively to just overtake the car in front knowing well that it is not going to make you reach your destination a lot earlier.

You here is me and many folks like me. There are, of course, exceptions to the above but more or less represent the prevalent pattern. We want it all – NOW and fast.

My father (and all those from his generation) tell me that it wasn’t so in their times (and so weren’t many things, but…). Which makes one think as to why it is so now. Is it because we have the option of doing a lot different things making wasted time a tangible loss OR is it because our gen simply lacks the focus or will to do long-time-taking tasks?

At any point, when we are doing one thing, our mind is consciously (or subconsciously) thinking about the next/alternative/different thing that we could/would be doing soon or possibly at that very same moment. And this is not exactly multitasking.

Or when we look at or take up a task that is going to be long and time-taking, we need to keep persuading ourselves to stay focused. It definitely doesn’t come naturally (or at least to me it doesn’t).

Both imply that we don’t think the present task deserves as much time and attention as it is getting now. Logically it should follow that we would know for sure of some other task which deserves this time and attention. Funnily though most of us, from the impatient janta, are actually idling our time away or doing things of no consequence/benefit.

Putting all this together means we are doing both – rushing through tasks which could benefit from forbearance AND wasting our precious time away in self-described timepass activities!

This could be true and I could pat myself for analyzing myself so well.

Or maybe it is not as simple a choice between too-many-things-to-do-at-any-time or too-boring-to-do-what-i-am-doing-now..