By: Mugwort

Has the thought ever occurred to you, why do I have to move so fast all the time? If so you are apart of a lineage that has seen radical shifts in technology that has subsequently increased everyday speed. I say this as many believe technology is supposed to aid us in life. But wouldn’t the current state of the world say otherwise? Meaning as technology has advanced so has the expected speed of modern life along with it.

Why do I recall as a child when my parents would order something, you were lucky if you got it within 4 business days. Current day on the contrary, expects overnight delivery for free or prompts you for a small monetary subscription in order to expedite the delivery. If this is true then we have exceeded the threshold for demand in comparison to compensation, namely the time aspect.

In my experience everything has a balance in life, the ying and yang if you will. Due to the current market’s demand, prices of goods have increased exponentially with no effort to increase minimum wage since 2009. With no effort to balance the scale in free market value of product to that a middle or lower class worker can make, the only currency left to balance the scale is time. But with the main cost being time currently in attempt to increase currency flow into households, at what cost is this introducing into the world today? It could be stated that recent scientific studies show that current generations are not expected to live longer than their parents. Mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and feelings of isolation have increased. Time.com, posted an article indicating that suicide rates have increased by 30% since 2000, this article also indicates that now almost a third of U.S. adults now report symptoms of depression or anxiety which is three times that reported in 2019.

Why is it that we often talk about the pace and speed of generations before us and almost romanticize these times. But then continually increase the amount of time we are willing to trade for an item or thing that often times is outdated or replaced by another in a very small amount of time? This doesn’t present a very promising ROI or Return on Investment in the business sector, so why do we as common individuals continue to operate this way?

These questions and statements are posed to shed light on how we currently operate in comparison of generations past. The truth is that currently we have not reached a technological level to achieve immortality and until that day, time is and always will be our greatest currency. With this I would ask, is the current speed and exchange for time worth it in current day life and will we in future generations be able to balance the time and cost imbalance we currently have set in motion?