Fast Forwarding

 

Patience has never been one of my virtues.  I continue to work on it and have gotten better with age.  But I still don’t do well standing in long-lines or being stuck in a traffic jam or waiting for some dawdling gate attendant to move the ramp up to the plane so I can move on to the baggage claim area and wait some more. I also have no patience for boring speeches.  If you have something important to say, get to the point.  And if it’s not important, don’t waste my time.

 

I have come to believe that my lack of patience and overall sense of urgency are the result of being an only child as well as genetics.  An only child tends to march to the beat of their own drum. And if left alone and given enough personal freedom, they often grow up to have little patience when things don’t go their way.  Mea Culpa.

 

At one point back in the day, I pretty much gave up on watching television. The commercials were just too much of an interruption and waste of time.  If it was a really good 30-minute sit-com, I might suffer through the commercials.  Other shows might get recorded and played back later.  I could watch sports if it was an important game or my favorite team was playing.  But most of my television time was spent watching movie rentals from Blockbuster. 

 

And then came digital recording and streaming services.  It’s just too easy to record a football game and then watch it in less than an hour by fast forwarding through the commercials and half time. And if one is willing to fast forward between plays, rewinding if something big happens, one can watch a game in less than 30 minutes.  It’s even better with the sound off so one isn’t forced to listen to the play-by-play and those annoying comments by some former player or coach. With Prime, Netflix and Apple TV, I have even more choices.  I can watch what I want, when I want and how I want.  I don’t even have to fast forward through it.  And then there is You Tube which has something for everyone and it all moves along at a good pace.  If not, you can just fast forward through it or switch to something else. 

 

Now I find myself spending too much time watching television or on the internet. These days I seldom read a book until bedtime. Then I get sleepy.  So, it can take a month or more for me to get through a book. I have started listening to audiobooks while walking the dog, but it’s not the same as reading. I miss reading books.  Maybe I’ll try fast forward reading.  Read the first and last sentence of a paragraph. If it doesn’t seem to be consequential to the story, just move on to the next paragraph. I’m sure the author would not appreciate someone skipping over their thoughtful, well-crafted words.  But they will just have to settle for the fact that I did buy their book.

 

One of these days perhaps I will stop fast forwarding.  Maybe I will come to realize that I’m just rushing to the end and so much of what I’ve seen and done since the beginning didn’t really matter all that much.