I got around to thinking the other day… why is it that no-one seems to have time for anything anymore? I’m not talking about time, I’m talking about time. Let me explain by giving an example.
I work for quite a small company. We do a fair amount of bespoke development, i.e. software which people have specifically asked us to write (rather than a product, which is made by us and then marketed to whoever may want it). This is all well and good. The problem is, we have to churn them out at such a rate that I always feel under constant time pressure. It’s not as bad as it sounds, i.e. I’m not working to tight schedules all the time, but it does mean that we don’t really take the time to really understand something before we embark upon it. Everyone wants their application in as short a time as possible, and because of that shortcuts get taken. Now, I’m not totally against taking shortcuts, but — they should be the exception rather than the rule!
Anyway, the upshot is that often the requirements don’t get specified sufficiently, meaning that we end up having to do quite a bit of work changing the application once it has been ‘completed’. So much so, in fact, that one particular application has taken a whole year’s worth of modification before our clients went live with it. Granted, that is the way some public sector organisations work in terms of red tape and getting it signed off in a production environment, but nevertheless that’s still an awful long time.
The subject was also on my mind recently when I was looking at the chapter of the Moore Course for this week. I basically went through it in an hour or so, not going into very much detail, but briefly thinking about the questions and reading the material. I could have spent a lot longer on it. This also applies to reading the Bible… I’m not sure what any of my blog readers do, but I tend to read it for ten or fifteen minutes every day, not really taking anything in. We have a “quick nuggets of wisdom” mentality whereby we want to read the Bible and get a little pearl of wisdom for the day, not to actually study it and gain something over a period of time which is much more valuable than a daily pearl of wisdom.
These days we have so much information aimed at our brains, like a firehose aimed at a teacup (to borrow an analogy from Dogbert). The only way we can cope is by getting more and more superficial… I was thinking, does this mentality pervade any other aspects of our lives? Relationships? With each other, with God? “Yes, God, you can have that five minutes of my time, but I can’t give you any more than that!” I wonder what Paul would have thought….
I am worried that the society and culture we live in is becoming all about image rather than substance. Speed is valued more than thoroughness. Short-term gain, long-term loss. If things continue the way they are, I’m not sure whether any of us will be able to claim that we have “lives” at all, we will be so busy trying to maintain our fake relationships and do things at work without really getting to grips with them…
Apologies for the mildly depressing nature of this post, but I thought it might be food for thought at least ๐
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