I was flipping through 200 channels with nothing to interest me when I decided to watch 30 ROCK on Netflix, mainly because it was the last smart and funny comedy on television.  After an episode or five, I started noticing old things like flip phones, tube TV’s and VHS tapes.  It was odd because I thought this was a recent show, then I checked the credits and was shocked to see 30 ROCK began in 2006.

WHERE DID THE LAST TEN YEARS GO?!

Over the past few months I’ve been feeling like time has been moving at warp speed.  Think Indy 500 fast.  I’m gobsmacked that we’re half way through October when New Years Eve feels like it was just a few weeks ago, and not approaching in just a few weeks!  I also feel good that I utilized the word gobsmacked…it’s terribly underused.  Back to the fleeting passage of time…

I never thought I would get to the age where I would say “time flies” but I am truly beginning to think that we’re on some interplanetary cocaine rocket.  When I was a kid, my mom told me that life was like an hourglass — at the beginning the sand slowly trickles down, but then somewhere in the middle the sand starts to zip through the glass.  I AM NOW AT THE HOUR WHERE THE SAND IS SPEEDING DOWN AND IT’S FREAKING ME OUT!

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the reason for this hasty movement and I keep coming back to one thing.  Technology.

We are constantly looking at our smart phones, tablets and computers waiting for the next email, text, blog post (yeah, I know it’s been a while), and cute cat video.  We keep looking forward and never stop to take in the moment we’re experiencing now.  Technology is the biggest time suck of our lives.  Though wasn’t it supposed to free time up for us?

Surely we can put down our phones, especially when we’re dining.  Nothing bothers me more than seeing a table full of people looking at their phones and not speaking with each other.  Let’s take a selfie of us having an awesome time then give me a few minutes while I post it on all of my social media platforms and ignore you.  What has happened to us as a society?  We’ve become glazed over anti-social imbeciles.

I went out for a walk today and saw several people staring at their phones.  So when I got home I Googled “how many people die while walking and texting.”  Here’s what it said in a recent USA TODAY article:  A 10-percent spike in pedestrian fatalities in the first six months of last year – the largest year-to-year increase in such deaths in four decades – may well be fueled by America’s increasing distraction with mobile devices.

Technology kills.  Stop and smell the roses before someone has to place them on top of your casket because you JUST HAD to read that emoji filled text while crossing 47th St!

Time is fleeting.  You especially realize this when someone you love has died.  You wish for more moments with them. If you’re lucky you can hold onto a lot of wonderful memories but even then you wonder why you couldn’t have had more.  Instead you were rushing from one place to another trying to cram as much in as possible to say I did this or did that on Facebook today.

Then there’s the time between now and Nov 8…Election Day.  Why does that time move at a glacial pace?  I can’t wait until it’s over.  It can’t come soon enough!  But I’ll save that rant for another time in a future blog post…

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