Whatever Happened to One Thing at a Time?

Are you an awesome multitasker? I am. I can multitask with the best of them. Women, I suppose have been doing it for ages in the home.... back when women were homemakers and that was it. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids and pretty much everything. Now, we are expected to do it all the time, everywhere. You are not an efficient worker if you cannot do 15 different things at once, and dammit do them all flawlessly.

Why must we move so fast? Are our lives better for our doing so much all the time? I don't think mine is. I long to just do one thing at a time and do it really well. I can see the benefit of doing many things at once if we were all getting to a better place. But all we are is more tired, more cranky, more anxious, more stressed.

But I don't have this many arms

Can we slow down a little? Appreciate things more? Care more? When I multitask, I am not all into ANY of the million things I am doing. It has its place, sure it does, but I fear we've taken it too far (as usual). Now it's expected in all aspects of our lives, it's expected of us in all we do. Doing one thing and doing it well isn't good enough. We have to be great at everything all the time and all at once.

In my o-so-humble opinion, I believe this is a big part of the problem. We want more-more-more, we have to do more-more-more so we can get more-more more. Except happiness. We don't get more happiness, we just get more stress. And in this all-consuming drive, we forget to appreciate the small stuff. And it's all small stuff. Small stuff adds up to big stuff.

This is when I yet again ask, Why are we here? For what do we do these things we do? If our insane schedules are not going to making our lives more enjoyable, then what's the point? And don't give me that nebulous future-building thing... sure, there is a point to that, and yes we need to secure our livelihoods... and make sure we do have a future... but remember our grandparents? They weren't nearly as crazed as are we with our cell phones and computers doing everything all the time always within phone reach always answering the phone always needing to to be doing something always in touch with everyone... and they were able to retire. Comfortably, a lot of the time. I'm not saying they didn't work hard when they worked. And maybe I am over-romanticizing things. What I do know is that the rats seem to be running faster and faster and yet falling further and further behind.

I, for one, am turning it all in. I want to enjoy my time here. I want slower, quieter, more appreciative times. I do not think we have to chase our tails quite so much. Because it isn't very much fun. And I look around... we surely are NOT making the world a better place to live.

Let's start doing THAT.