Life Moves Too Fast

     Life is moving on, and I feel like I am standing still.  There is instant gratification all around me, and I do not believe the rest of the world even stops for a minute to smell the roses or appreciate the world around them.

    Traffic moves at sixty-five miles an hour on four-lane highways.  The news is instantaneous.  Music is continuous.  Communication is available at the flip of a wrist and a touch of a finger.   I can talk to someone and see them at the same time even though they are on the other side of the world. There are fast food restaurants and prepackaged dinners.    Televisions, computers, I-Pads or smartphones bring entertainment into the home or into the car.  Speaking of the car, road maps are no long needed; just flip open the phone or push a button in your car.

    Electronics has everyone moving at a faster and faster pace.  However, as I get older, my brain function seems to go slower.   It takes longer to learn something new and retain it.  That would be fine, but in six months, what I have learned is obsolete, and I have to start all over.

    This phenomenon has slowly crept up on me.  Early in life, I could remember phone numbers, and address with no problem - never carried a notepad.  After I had turned fifty, I wrote them down so I could refer to them.   A few years later, I needed a bit more help.  Instant recall was not so instant.  Before I made a phone call, I wrote a note to myself as to who I was calling and what I wanted to talk about.  Because I was trying to do two or three things at once probably didn’t help, but this crutch did keep me from sounding like a fool when the party answered, and I couldn’t remember who I was calling.

    I keep adding another crutch here and there, and I presume this condition is due to the aging process, but it sure is frustrating.  Sometimes I wish for the good old days when I was comfortable with my surroundings and did not have to scramble to keep up.