Regular readers know, I’m always moaning that time goes too quickly. But currently, it seems to have moved up a gear. There’s a certain feeling to the world at the moment-not a calm or comforting one, but something more restless. The sort that makes everything feel as though it has to happen now… or perhaps should have already happened five minutes ago.
I’ve been noticing it more and more. People rushing, expecting, assuming.
As though the whole world has started to expect everything to be like like Amazon — instant, efficient, endlessly available-without ever stopping to ask whether that’s actually possible… or indeed human.
I was thinking about Dave the other day. He’s a bit of a one-man band, really. He’s the sort who works until the sun goes down, then keeps going anyway. Most nights, he’s home late, a bit of tea if there’s time, then bed. Then up again the following morning and straight back at it. More of the same. Groundhog Day. Day after day, week after week. Maybe- if he’s lucky (or I nag him enough!)- a Sunday where things slow just enough to breathe to recover for another full week ahead or a band practice or gig. But no proper time off.
People around him can see this. They also know about his current health difficulties and the chronic pain he’s in everyday while waiting for two operations because of the current long hospital waiting lists. They often comment on it. And yet still, people want more.
“Why isn’t this done?”
“Can you just…?”
“Shouldn’t it have been…?”
As though there’s a hidden team somewhere. As though his effort can simply be stretched thinner and thinner without ever snapping.
But there isn’t a team for these jobs they’re commenting on. It’s just him. He’s happy to put the work and the hours in. He strives to do the best job he can but having people grumble at him must be demoralising.
And he’s already working as hard as a person can.
It’s not just at work either. It’s everywhere.
There are so many other examples, I could write about recently, but this is one of the small, ordinary moments that happened to me at the weekend. I dropped Dave off to work and was heading back, easing out of a car park when a marina operative told me to pull over into the single side road and wait at the end as the hoist was coming through and it takes up the whole road. Fair enough. Sensible.
So I waited. It was calm and peaceful. Ozzy was settled in the back as we both looked out for the hoist coming and passing us. No hurry, no pressure.
A car pulled up behind me. Then almost immediately, the beeping started — sharp, impatient, relentless. I rolled the window down and tried to explain.
“Sorry — I’ve been told to wait. The hoist is coming.”
But there was no pause. No moment to take in the situation. Just more noise. More urgency. More frustration, as though I’d chosen, for reasons entirely my own, to sit there blocking the road for fun.
His beeping and shouting to me then unsettled Ozzy (who, if you didn’t already know is our dog), so he started barking. The calm was over.
And I remember thinking — it would have taken less than a minute to just look. To notice. To understand what was going on.
But we don’t seem to do that anymore.
We react first.
We assume.
We rush.
Everyone says time is going faster these days (I know I’m like a broken record!). You hear it from all ages -not just parents juggling busy lives, but retirees, even those well into their nineties. “Life flies by,”, “It went slower in the old days,”, they say.
And I wonder if it’s not time itself that’s speeding up, but us.
The way everything is now — instant messages, next-day delivery, same-day dispatch — it creates this quiet expectation that everything, and everyone, should operate at that pace. That waiting is a problem to be solved rather than a natural part of life.
But most people aren’t systems.
They’re just… people. Simple, wonderful, flawed, human, people.
People who get tired. People who need rest. People who can only do one thing at a time, no matter how much is asked of them. And we wonder why there’s a mental health crisis.
I was listening to a new business podcast recently, the Mind Your Business Podcast with Sara Davies and her sister, Helen Goddard. Helen was explaining how her small family business has a really good professional website, it’s so good that people forget or don’t realise that they’re a small business, with staff who go home to bed to sleep each night (shocking, I know), not carry on 24/7 like robots to get orders out at all hours. They were talking about how customers often assume they’re a huge operation, simply because everything looks polished and efficient. Just because a big company like Amazon can run like like (and we’re all aware of of the criticism surrounding Amazon’s alleged exploitative working conditions and treatment of staff), doesn’t mean every person or business should.
Because they are human.
And perhaps that’s the bit we’re forgetting.
As you know, I work from home. If I take time off for a walk or lunch in the day then I make up for it in the evening or night and that’s okay, my decision. I have always been aware that getting up and outdoors and going for a walk as a break from the desk would be good for me, but I always felt guilty doing it. Now we have a dog, I have to get up, get outdoors and have that stretch and walk for him. So now, in my mind, I don’t have to feel guilt for taking that time but of course I never should have anyway. We’re humans, we need a break too. I really treasure that part of the day, being out in nature.
Nature doesn’t rush. It never has. Trees don’t grow faster because we’re impatient. The tide doesn’t turn sooner because someone is in a hurry. Things take the time they take.
There’s a quiet wisdom in that and maybe we could do with borrowing a bit of it. Slowing down, just slightly. Pausing before reacting (oh, imagine the fallouts that would prevent).
Looking, properly looking, at what’s in front of us before we lean on the horn or fire off a message or demand a little bit more from someone who has already given everything they can.
Because most of the time, behind whatever delay or inconvenience we’re facing, there isn’t laziness or indifference.
There’s just a person.
Doing their best.
And perhaps that’s enough.
Or at least — it should be.
Read more: Life posts
Slow down- enjoy a day out in Pembrokeshire
