Just six more degrees, and pencils collapse onto the floor, feet scurry through the doorway, trembling hands turn in apologetic tardy slips, frantic fingers attack the send button, and a traffic light fades into red.
The second hand on a clock can turn one’s world upside down.
The Beatles might have been onto something by suggesting that seven days a week doesn’t give people much time to work with.
In fact, time seems to be on short supply, yet the demand for it has been increasing at a constant rate.
Somehow, we have managed to create a society that cares more about what a person does in the “here and now” than what he or she has accomplished over the past several months.
Why? Because if we can’t get what we want the second we demand it, let’s just say we aren’t happy campers.
Consider the Internet. I don’t know about you, but there have been many moments when I’ve been tempted to chuck my laptop out the window out of frustration for my sporadically slow Internet connection.
My problem is not that I have anger management issues— I hope— but that I simply don’t have the time to sit and wait around for a piece of information to reach me. There are too many commitments to fulfill, expectations to meet, responsibilities to carry out, and dreams to pursue.
To top it all off, we are not only expected to lead the typical, fast-paced life of the modern-day, but alongside this pursuit, we are expected to seek perfection.
And here lies the source of most, or maybe even all of the pressure students face in school today.
We’ve reached a point where the only way to distinguish one equally remarkable success story from the next is to look for the person who could make an effective executive decision under time pressure.
We can’t possibly keep up with these standards.
The day you find yourself chasing after your own life as it rolls off into the distance, something has gone terribly wrong.
Some days, my life seems to get so out of control that I find myself bargaining with my alarm clock— yes, that inanimate object that beeps incessantly every morning indicating that the few hours of sleep I’ve managed to acquire will have to suffice for the rest of the day— and fumbling for the “Snooze” button in the hopes that those extra three minutes will make the increasingly difficult task of getting out of bed slightly more tolerable.
But what happens when there is no “Snooze” button? We, the allegedly reckless teenagers, go so far as to jeopardize our own safety to wrestle with time and to do everything possible to make it work in our favor.
Without a doubt, driving recklessly has to be the most obvious example of how far we’re willing to go to ease the stress and pressure of all of our time-sensitive responsibilities.
Some of my peers won’t hesitate before putting their own lives at stake by speeding and weaving through morning traffic on the highway.
And authority figures in our lives wonder where the disconnect is between teenagers’ common sense and their quickness to ignore it.
There are just too many places to be, and not enough time to get there.
So, we compensate by creating more time, even if that means tainting our credibility as “tomorrow’s leaders.”
The need for slower-paced days and extended deadlines is understandable, as is society’s inability to create such an environment.
However, a few, quick motions on a clock shouldn’t dictate the degree to which we are successful or levelheaded.
We are worth more than society gives us credit for; this is our time to stake our claim to success— not as subjects to ticking clocks, but as people with beating hearts.