By: Jon Haslam <[email protected]>

Over the past few months, I’ve come to a realization about the society that we live in. The rate of life in which we live, is much faster paced than it has been in the past. We live in culture where instant results and immediate gratification have grown to become the norm. If my dinner takes longer than three minutes in the microwave, I begin weighing other options that might be a faster way to get food into my system. If I text one of my friends and I don’t get a response within a few minutes, I begin to grow uneasy and anxious. Do we value our time more? Or is it simply trying to accomplish all that can be done in 24 short hours?

Whether you like it or not society moves fast, and if you don’t move fast, too, you might fall behind. Making it from the E rooms to the math department in 10 minutes is hard enough, but in a culture that moves so quickly, how is there any time to waste?

In an attempt to slow everything down, we build something into our lives and schedules to makes us feel more relaxed and at ease. Procrastination. Procrastinating is my way of slowing down. There is always something that needs to be done and there is always a deadline, but when I keep up with my tasks the only reward I get is another one waiting just around the corner. I keep my tasks and assignments as long as I can in order to feel like I have it all under control and to make if feel like the world is moving at my speed. There is no worse feeling than, feeling as though something has become beyond your control. At that point, motivation to keep up with everything around you comes to screaming halt.

As a student and a human being for that matter, we have a lot to worry about— relationships, work, school, sports, the future—and keeping up with it all, is nearly an impossible task. How can we be expected to not put certain things off until the last minute when so much is on our plate?

When I take a step back, I realize that the more time someone has with a task, the better the end result. Which would you rate higher, the doodles in the notes I was supposed to be taking or the Mona Lisa? It really brings up the idea of time vs. quality. So many people look for instant results, that true hard work is being overshadowed by sheer convenience.

Don’t get me wrong, completing tasks as they hit you can be a good thing. Keeping up with the world around you provides great experience as to how you will be living the rest of your life. It just seems as though we can only do that for so long until we become fatigued and start looking for some sort of outlet to just slow down. Jon Haslam is a reporter for the HiLite. Email him at [email protected].