Day 44 - Too easy?

Tomorrow is pancake day. Here in the US (especially where I am) it is actually Mardi Gras but to me Shrove Tuesday will always be pancake day. The day when we are traditionally supposed to be using up all the luxury items in our pantry/larder ahead of the 40 day fast toward Easter. A day in which we now rush out to the shops to buy all those items instead! Another classic case of missing the point there! Which leads me nicely on to today's blog. 

What is the topic of today's blog I hear you ask? Anyone. No-one?

Well, human laziness basically. 

To my relatively untrained eye, pancake batter consists of eggs, flour and milk. But apparently you can now buy a special "pancake mix" from the supermarket which just requires you to add milk. In other words, they have kindly mixed together the eggs and flour for you, as we all know that is unbelievably tricky to get right and is a real time-consumer. You have to be kidding me!?

Have we got so lazy that we are now expecting more and more things to be done on our behalf? Did you know for example that there are kids over in Japan and China whose job it is to play computer games all day? But not for their own benefit, rather it is for yours. They will play 8-10 hours per day (sometimes more) essentially "levelling up" your characters for you so you don't have to bother doing it. Now, call me crazy, but doesn't that defeat the point of playing the game yourself?

And what about this "JD and coke in a can"? Is it so difficult now to take some JD and add your own coke to it? We use the "lack of time" excuse to justify some of the laziest and most bizarre behaviour imaginable. I appreciate that some things need to be delegated in a busy life but surely people have to draw the line somewhere.

It seems that we won't even take the time to mix our own eggs and flour together, so what chance do we have of actually undertaking anything which involves either time and effort? How will we change the world if we are always looking for a way to shortcut the system, even sub-consciously? It is no surprise that we are turning into a short-term obsessed, obese society here in the "developed" world.

A steady diet of the repetitive is driving us away from innovation, away from variety and away from original thought. We are better than that. Human kind is capable of so much with the right focus, the right direction, the right energy. But we are allowing ourselves to become consumed with "content", with quick fixes and short-term satisfaction. 

Please don't take the easy way out folks. Don't always look for the quick fix, or the shortcut or the easy way out. Nothing worth having comes easy (to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt). I'm not sure I subscribe 100% to this ideal, but taking the proper time to do things right is certainly a worthwhile approach. 

Don't always settle for short fixes, the hardest yards often reap the greatest rewards. And make the time to do some of these simple things. Often it is mere minutes out of your day and you may find that the enforced slow-down may actually help you to take stock and occasionally look at your life as it passes you by. 

Till tomorrow, Tom