Sometimes things change so fast that life blurs. “Change” has been the buzzword of the 21st century, and it doesn’t appear it will go away any time soon, unless it’s modified to encompass a continually speeded up world. That’s the way it feels.
A couple of weeks ago, we went out with good friends for Valentine’s Day. We do this annually, and took in the U.S. Women’s Soccer Olympic Qualifying game, went to the gun range and had dinner. It was a relaxing day with lots of considered conversation back and forth where everyone inputted. It felt good.
At one point, as I looked around the stadium at the crowd and realized that we were dang close to being the oldest people there, it made me think about how fast events seem to zip by these days, and the difficulty sometimes in just keeping up with technology, ideas and the people you care about. I felt passed by.
I asked the other husband in our group if he ever felt like he couldn’t keep up with things. His IMMEDIATE response was a head nod, slight smile, and, “Oh yeah.” We sipped our beers, and commiserated a bit about the next generation moving so quickly that we just couldn’t keep up.
This feeling hits you in many ways. Take my most recent airplane flight. I don’t fly a lot, perhaps 4-6 times a year the past few years. I keep up with the rules and regulations to can whip through security without holding nyone up.
Though I was prepared for the security part of getting into the airport, I wasn’t ready for electronic ticketing. Let me say this first: I’ve used electronic ticketing since the day it was installed, so I’m no amateur.
But, just since the last time I’d flown, the software program had changed so after the ticket ejected from the machine, I went to the counter to get my tag for my luggage, but it wasn’t there. The machine now delivers that sticker. No biggie, but it was mildly flustering because you think you have a system down, but you don’t. Of course, ironically enough, on the flight home, that newer software had not been installed at the Phoenix airport, so it was back to old school. Made me laugh. And you realize you must be aware of and understand both systems.
Though that is not a complicated situation, it is compounded when these types of electronic information portals change randomly with no explanations. Sometimes you can figure them out, and sometimes you can’t. They are seldom as intuitive as the developers would have you believe.
Locally in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, traffic patterns are changing day-to-day. Lanes open, roads are diverted, detours send you off your route. The metropolitan area grows so fast that new and repaired roads can’t even begin to keep up. As a driver, you are in a perpetual state of angst regarding traffic patterns, gridlock and bottlenecks.
If you are on top of your smart phone apps, you have a decided advantage in checking the “red” status to avoid the next traffic backup. That’s one more piece of technology changing the roadmap and forcing you to keep up just so you can negotiate driving from here to there.
Traffic, travel and communications are just a few of the areas rocketing along, forces you can’t control, that cause you to adopt or fall behind. Repeatedly, there is more falling behind, and though I don’t think that is automatically a bad thing, you do stop and ponder what the Millennials will think when their kids are old enough to leave the house.
A couple of weeks ago, we went out with good friends for Valentine’s Day. We do this annually, and took in the U.S. Women’s Soccer Olympic Qualifying game, went to the gun range and had dinner. It was a relaxing day with lots of considered conversation back and forth where everyone inputted. It felt good.
At one point, as I looked around the stadium at the crowd and realized that we were dang close to being the oldest people there, it made me think about how fast events seem to zip by these days, and the difficulty sometimes in just keeping up with technology, ideas and the people you care about. I felt passed by.
I asked the other husband in our group if he ever felt like he couldn’t keep up with things. His IMMEDIATE response was a head nod, slight smile, and, “Oh yeah.” We sipped our beers, and commiserated a bit about the next generation moving so quickly that we just couldn’t keep up.
This feeling hits you in many ways. Take my most recent airplane flight. I don’t fly a lot, perhaps 4-6 times a year the past few years. I keep up with the rules and regulations to can whip through security without holding nyone up.
Though I was prepared for the security part of getting into the airport, I wasn’t ready for electronic ticketing. Let me say this first: I’ve used electronic ticketing since the day it was installed, so I’m no amateur.
But, just since the last time I’d flown, the software program had changed so after the ticket ejected from the machine, I went to the counter to get my tag for my luggage, but it wasn’t there. The machine now delivers that sticker. No biggie, but it was mildly flustering because you think you have a system down, but you don’t. Of course, ironically enough, on the flight home, that newer software had not been installed at the Phoenix airport, so it was back to old school. Made me laugh. And you realize you must be aware of and understand both systems.
Though that is not a complicated situation, it is compounded when these types of electronic information portals change randomly with no explanations. Sometimes you can figure them out, and sometimes you can’t. They are seldom as intuitive as the developers would have you believe.
Locally in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, traffic patterns are changing day-to-day. Lanes open, roads are diverted, detours send you off your route. The metropolitan area grows so fast that new and repaired roads can’t even begin to keep up. As a driver, you are in a perpetual state of angst regarding traffic patterns, gridlock and bottlenecks.
If you are on top of your smart phone apps, you have a decided advantage in checking the “red” status to avoid the next traffic backup. That’s one more piece of technology changing the roadmap and forcing you to keep up just so you can negotiate driving from here to there.
Traffic, travel and communications are just a few of the areas rocketing along, forces you can’t control, that cause you to adopt or fall behind. Repeatedly, there is more falling behind, and though I don’t think that is automatically a bad thing, you do stop and ponder what the Millennials will think when their kids are old enough to leave the house.