Maybe we have always been an impatient society, but it seems like my parents and their generation were content to let things happen when they happened.

Now we are definitely an impatient bunch and with every advancement of modern technology we have become a society that demands instant gratification.

Maybe it all began with the fast food restaurants and drive-thru windows. Or maybe fast food restaurants and drive-thru windows merely answered the call of “We want it now.”

Take convenience stores for example, offshoots from the Mom and Pop stores where you picked things up to carry you over until you could get to the supermarket. Now it seems that convenience stores have become very inconvenient for our fast-paced lifestyles.

I stop by a convenience store every day and I’ve noticed that if there is a line of more than five people toes start tapping, people start rocking on the balls of their feet and a lot of sighing is going on.

It’s a convenience store for gosh sakes. People are still in and out in less time than it takes to drive to a supermarket, park in a large parking lot and walk all the way into the store. And that doesn’t even count the time it takes to find what you want, check out and walk all the way back to your car.

Just before I retired, I had one of my advertising accounts stop by to proof an ad. It certainly was no big deal, all I had to do was find it in my e-mail, open it up and click print. The whole procedure took about 2 minutes at best, but my account and I were both drumming our fingers waiting for the printer to spit out the proof.

As I was drumming my finger thinking the darn printer was taking forever, I reminded myself that it really wasn’t all that many years ago that we didn’t even get proofs until the next day. Then came fax machines and now the fax machines seem too darn slow and some days the e-mail seems too darn slow.

With e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, drive-thru this and drive-thru that we want instant gratification on everything. I recently heard that there are some places in this country that have drive-thru liquor stores. There’s a form of instant gratification that just plain shouldn’t exist.

I’m no different than anyone else with the “I want it now” attitude. I feel my blood pressure start to rise if I’m stuck in traffic longer than I think I should be. If I’m stopped at an intersection and can’t get into traffic for more than a minute I start looking at my watch and drum the steering wheel. The truth is that even if I’m stuck at an intersection for five minutes it really isn’t going to make a darn bit of difference in reaching my destination.

Our quest to make a living and survive in this world today has taken away the precious gift of time. For every advancement with time-saving appliances and technology there are more responsibilities placed on us to use up the time saved.

We need to slow down and smell the proverbial roses. We need to get back to basics and learn how to relax, play with our children, have a real conversation that isn’t a text message. We are in such a hurry to live our lives that somewhere along the line we stopped living and learned how to function in overdrive.

I know slowing down is easier said than done, and even in retirement I find it difficult to do, but the way I see it we should make a strong effort to be a little more patient and enjoy life. I think a slower pace of living would be real nice, so nice in fact that I want it right now!

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