The world operates on instant today. But that means you are always jumping to everyone else. People believe they have to respond to every email, call, text, etc. immediately. You put that on yourself. Stop this instantly. Nothing is that urgent. Take control of your schedule and your life. You will accomplish more, realize you have more time, be less stressed, & be happier.

1. Instant Gratification
We live in a society that basically lives off the motto:
“I have got to have it now / know it now...and tomorrow is way too long to wait”
This applies to their entire life - business, personal, social, etc. This is the leading
thought they cater their lives around to from morning to night, 365/7.
It is demanded in technology gadgets, information obtained or learned, & exchanges
between individuals (twitter, text messages, rss feeds, emails, cell phone calls) and so
on.
It dictates the way individuals (in developed nations) act throughout the day, what they
do throughout the day, and what they get done in that day.
But when did we get this way? Years ago, we carried pagers and that was good
enough. That was ‘instant’. The person receiving the page had to then look for a phone
booth to call the person paging them. That meant people on both sides had to wait.
And guess what? Both people survived. And business was done. And life went on.
So it really wasn’t until today, due to my own “I want to have it today” desire, did it dawn
on me that the majority of the individuals in developed nations are truly obsessed with
this thought pattern and it’s gotten to the point of ridiculousness.
So, I am really curious: why do so many people feel the need to jump constantly,
instead of keeping control over their day and time?
When did society start to think: what everyone else has to say is much more important
than what they are doing or are engaged in?
And when did society start to think that they are really 100% inefficient without the latest
technology gadget, so they better go out and get it today so they can be SO much more
efficient in what they are pursuing by the end of that day (yeah, right - not sure where
the proof is for this).
If we are this needy and greedy now - my gosh - I can’t imagine where we will be in 5
years? That’s 2015, really not so far away.
What more could we possibly want faster, better, etc. - to live a decent, normal life and
be a good person in society?
If you think about it - our demands aren’t really our own demands. The technology
companies create the umph around the need and thereby we fall into the trap: we ‘need
to have this now’. Steve Jobs/Apple did a brilliant job of this with the iPad - in 60 days, 2

2. million sold. No one really needed an iPad. He just made you think you did. 2 million
people and counting believed him.
And if you also think about it - our desire to know really isn’t that curious or pressing -
it’s just an individuals lack of own confidence and strength to fall into jumping to all the
means that supply us with that information.
I am referring to: spending time reading everyone’s tweet you are following, answering
every text message instantly, responding back to every email right away, returning every
call on your cell phone or answering it instantly even... my biggest pet peeve
digression: as if we were all so important or our jobs are soo critical, that no phone call
could wait - so you must take it at the gas station, in the store, and start blabbing your
personal life away to all the passerbyers who really don’t want to hear your problems or
gossip.
And my bigger question is what is really the big deal about Twitter? When did
individuals lack such a life of their own - they need to constantly and instantly know
what everyone they are ‘following’ is doing in their life moment by moment or every
single day - that we seemed to be just fine living a great life without knowing just 2 years
ago before Twitter came about - and we still survived?
I don’t think anyone has taken the time to stop and really put all these things into
perspective. Probably because everyone is so wrapped up in this - they don’t stop. They
just keep jumping to the next hottest thing that comes out and adding it to their ‘to do
list’ of instant gratification.
So I am writing this to do so. To shed some light on what people are ‘really’ engaged in
when they are doing all these things.
And what it amounts to is this: What you really are engaged in is a lot of time waisting,
frivolous activity (which I have been guilty of myself in some ways on occasion).
All these things: twitter, facebook, IM, texting, rss feeds for blogs, emails, cell calls - this
is what society today (in developed nations) are wrapping their worlds around. This is
what your day starts with and what your day ends with.
Makes you wonder what we were doing with all our free time as a society just 5 years
ago.
If you don’t believe me, start timing yourself on this. Add up all the seconds (keep a stop
watch by you) all the minutes, all the hours you spend jumping to everyone’s text
message, IM, email, facebook comment, tweet, taking every cell phone call, etc etc.
You might be very surprised how much time you actually spend each day on all this
‘stuff’ overall.

3. In many ways, I have been guilty of this myself, I am certainly not void of this (minus the
cell phone calls - I have always maintained control over that). Over the past year, I have
gotten sucked in by this ‘stuff’ craze.
But as I stated earlier, it wasn’t until an event this weekend catered around my own
‘need to have it now’ did I even stop to think about this long enough to recognize it’s
importance - enough that I felt it warranted sharing with others.
If you don’t think this really dominates your life - even if you did track over a few days
and add up all the time you spend on this stuff - then I’d still like to challenge you just a
bit further to make sure - and ask you these 2 simple questions:
Where is all your time going?
What are you actually getting accomplished for yourself each day - if you are constantly
following others (twitter), or responding to others instantly, or jumping to everyone
else’s needs?
If you can write a list that shows proof to me otherwise, then I will say is it’s fabulous you
have learned to balance all this out and not let it lead your life - you are rare!
We have all these things to be more productive, be more aware, be more engaged, yet I
don’t see that really happening in society.
With everything available in developed nations today, you would think we would be the
most efficient and productive countries and societies in the history of the world to date.
But I really don’t believe that is who we are. I would even dare to say that our founding
fathers in America - with out electricity, let alone one single tech gadget - did more in
each day than any one person in 2010 really does in one day of their own.
I am not saying drop all these things completely - I am suggesting putting significant
boundaries around them all or around many of them, so they do not dominate your day
(aka: they don’t keep interrupting your day).
I am very different from others - to me - everything can wait - until I can allocate the time
to it - so I am never in any ‘instant rush’ to return an email, a text message or a cell
phone call - unless I am the one that wants to rush to it b/c I am excited about it.
And guess what? I still have friends & tons of colleagues, I still get a lot of business
done, I still have ‘a life’, and I am still aware about what is going on in the world on a
daily basis.
My life is super because I only ‘allow in’ what I want, when I want - I have put
boundaries around all these things. I have built a life that is in my control, not what other

4. people think is ‘urgent’. Someone else’s ‘urgency’ (aka: instant gratification of ‘need to
know’) is 91/2x out of 10 - never your own.
Example: Think about how many text messages you get in a day. If you had to rate all
the text messages you get throughout the day in terms of relevancey/importance - that
had any pressing or instant action that was really necessary on your part (to respond to)
- I am sure it would dwindle down to maybe 1-2 text messages total out of them all... if
even that many.
Yet you probably responded to 99% of them, if not 100% of them ‘instantly. That’s a real
waist of time.
What else could you have been doing with all those seconds and minutes of your time
that would be more beneficial to you or what you want out of life?
We sometimes tend to take time for granted, but remember, seconds and minutes make
up the hours of a day - and you can never get time back. Each day, God blesses you
with 24 hours - for you to do something incredible with. So I am simply suggesting -
make better use of yours, and a lot of this ‘stuff’ can wait or be eliminated entirely, and
your life would still be very fufilled and rewarding.
This is not being selfish - this is putting all this ‘stuff’ in perspective and living a more
normal lifestyle. If we are doing ‘all this’ now in 2010 - we will probably be doing a lot
more by 2015 because technology and communication means will advanced each year.
Our ‘instant gratification’ need/want will be raised to an even higher standard. So by
then - what will anybody be accomplishing in one day for themselves?
If people are really your friends, they will still be your friends if you wait to text them
back 2 hours later, or if you never text them back on something that is frivolous. And if
you really want to know what is going on in someone’s life that you care about -then call
them. Don’t wait for a tweet to dictate what you know about them for the day.
And if you are out in a restaurant eating -then don’t answer the call. Eat your food and
then get back to the person. That is what v/m is for - and that is a technology feature
that is not going away. So let it be your friend again. People leave you messages and
you return calls when you have time or when you want (just reminding you why it was
implemented in the first place) :) Nothing is a life or death situation for the average
person that I am referencing - you my listening audience.
Again, I am not saying stop all this totally. I am not saying get off twitter (well, that is
becoming debatable) and facebook or stop IMing or emailing or texting people or even
answering calls.
I am simply encouraging you to evaluate how much time you spend on all these things,
and determine how much each (or all) is really doing for you.

5. Maybe decide what you can eliminate altogether to free up your time for something
more time worthy, but definitely decide to set boundaries for all these existing tech
gadgets and means of communication - and any new ones you begin to incorporate as
the years go on.
Life should be lived more normally than they way society is operating now. Technology
coupled with our instant gratification need/want is becoming dangerously high for our
own good - simply because we have let it. We have let it take control over us, we have
let it rule us and our days. We have numbingly gone along with everything and gotten
more absorbed in each one more than the other. It’s easy to, because everyone else
around you is just as much.
But, it’s a new decade and it’s time to stop this ridiculousness now, and get back a lot
more of your time (and energy) that is currently being swapped to someone else or
many others.
So, as we advance more in technology year after year and we naturally up our so called
‘needs’ and wants to even faster or more ‘instant gratification’ please remember to
restructure your leading message for the day now with the motto: “Life in perspective...
all things can wait (until tomorrow)”.
Life in perspective. Stop jumping to the world and spend your new found time and
energy creating a better one for yourself!