Too many times these past years I’ve found myself a bit irritated with people when they tell me they’re going to do something and it doesn’t get finished in a timely manner. It’s not that they’re over-booked with work, but rather they were busy with some sort of personal recreation. Just this past summer I was keen to notice when driving or walking past downtown construction/re-model projects and noticing far too many times, workers standing aside with their smart phones in hand and texting to whomever. I guess our world has changed to the point of mixing personal life with our jobs. I’ve walked into far too many offices and found clerks in text conversations with likely friends or family members. I’m wondering if there is some sort of hive mentality where there has to be a near play-by-play transmission to the world of what we are saying and doing at any given time.
I’ve mentioned before about this “look at me” generation that many of the sociologists are studying and following at great lengths. According to them, this is the first time in history that this type of generation has surfaced in the world. I suppose they’re in a state of guessing as to where it will takes us in future societal settings. Many of the older ones are adapting to this behavior as well. I find people in my generation getting heavily involved in the social medias. Ever since the internet and personal computers arrived, I’ve considered the internet nothing more than a virtual library within which you may interact. Too many in the general public believe that if you read it on the internet, then it has to be true. Similarly, there are books in libraries that carry the truths of those authors who believe what they said to be true. Not always correct when we find some writers a bit out in left field and yet they manage to get themselves published.
I’m sure we all remember the numerous tabloids that were stationed near the check-out counters at the grocery stores. I would sometimes read their headlines and think, “Wow! Do people really believe this stuff when they read it.” It causes me to remember so many years ago when traveling across town with my grandmother to visit an elderly friend of hers who was a bit of a hermit. His life was super-regimented and only ventured out in public to purchase groceries and pay bills. He’d sit on his sofa in conversation with her and about the world events and often times refer to an article he recently read in The Tattler. That was one of the worst of the trashy tabloids at the grocery store where you would find some of the most absurd articles. Even in my young age I considered such writing to be sensational and filled with unbelievable stories covering nearly every subject including the numerous visits by aliens to our planet. Perhaps that’s why I am to this day a bit more skeptical when reading another’s writing.
Instead of people being so tuned into social media, perhaps they should pay more attention to their own growth and development. It’s not that we can’t have our time for entertainment, and be that whatever we consider it to be, but to place it behind those things that are more important for ourselves and our careers. If we don’t continue to work at getting better as a whole, then we find our feet getting cemented on the rungs of our ladders of success.
Keep the growth moving, and just remember, our entertainment can wait.
