January 2, 1974

Instant Everything Needs Patience

In this age of pre-perked coffee, factory-built houses and on-the-spot television it is natural to expect "instant everything."

Unfortunately, we seem to have transferred this sense of immediacy into our emotional life where it creates much mischief.

How we "feel" about life finally is translated into "action" about life.  Our attitude determines our ability to cope with all the problems that beset us.

Difficulties requiring readjustment - discovered in the morning - are converted into crises by the eleven o'clock news.  Twenty four hours later we are dismayed if the instant problems have not been solved with instant solutions.

The opposite of instant success, of course, is instant failure, which justifies instant criticism.  When criticism comes in the door, reason flies out the window.

Thus, before the problem is even defined, we have adopted desperate measures and hung a scapegoat.

The most recent example of this tendency is the so-called "energy crisis."

For several years, a few leaders in Congress, the White House and the oil industry have warned us that demand would soon outstrip supply.

But who listened?

Not the environmentalists who demanded we clean up two centuries of pollution within the remainder of this decade.  A genuine problem-conducive to careful improvement - became a lever to deny us cheap plentiful coal energy while we guzzled our limited oil and natural gas resources.

Now a 15 percent shortage of oil, which the American economic system can easily adjust too, has produced panic.  Economists forecast recession, politicians grind out emergency legislation, bureaucrats scream for rationing, and the public starts hoarding everything from oil to toilet paper.

And who is to blame for our exaggerated difficulty?

Why, Congress, the White House and the oil industry!

And who is the first to suffer?

Why, the environmentalists!

Our instant everything culture has created a whole new set of emotional hang-ups for the youth of today.

It seems logical and right to some that our instant desires should be fulfilled with instant gratification.

A yearning for ease succumbs to the illusion of drugs.

Sex becomes an act of impulse without love.  The responsibilities of family are replaced with group living.

Adults, likewise, often are snared by impatience.

Work that can be performed in an instant is expected to provide instant rewards that will enable us to live in the manner to which we would like to become accustomed.  For 40 hours of easy, clean, safe work we would like high wages, pensions, health care, a long list of paid holidays, four-week vacations and no orders from the boss.

It is the miracle of U.S. industry that much of this is reality, and that the same thing for 30 hours work is a serious goal of the American workingman.

As citizens we some times expect government to support us from the womb to the tomb.  The vicissitudes of commerce should be eliminated with guaranteed annual wages, negative income taxes, 90 percent unemployment insurance and bottomless welfare.

In the arts we make millionaires of the untrained who are able to demonstrate they have transcended the demands of discipline and organization.  In music, "beat" takes the place of harmony.  In art, pattern replaces communication.  In literature, filth substitutes for insight.

Only instant achievement is acceptable.

I hope you have noticed the qualifying adjectives throughout this essay.

Despite an unrealistic reliance upon quick success, the majority of us still plug away at the world's problems with the tools at hand.

Most of us lead lives of "quiet desperation," accepting our burdens as the inescapable requirement of living.

The majority still works faithfully, pay the taxes, obey the law, and guide their children along the same path.

As we enter a New Year, we could make no better resolution than that of attempting to recognize the other person's problems.

With recognition come understanding, kindness and patience.

These may be corny virtues to some, but life is tremendously more satisfying with them.

Author: Lindsey Williams