Culture Shift

Culture Shift

Last Sunday, I was sat at my window: watching.  While I was waiting for something to happen (nothing did), I noticed something.   It was shortly after 1pm when it clicked, the tail end of the lunch rush at McDonald's but it was still relatively busy. Over the course of the time that I sat there, car after car after car pulled into the drive through, but it was only a slow trickle into the actual establishment itself.



The first thing this told me is, people are stupid.  Now, this may come as a shock to you, but the human race isn't all that smart.  It was rather clear that walking in was the quicker route, but the line for the drive-thru continued to extend to the end of the parking lot.  To me that left only two possible answers: people are stupid, or people are lazy.

But looking more into the situation I realized there might be a different answer.  The more I observed the drive-thru I saw huge SUV's with one person in them.  The more I looked inside the store (I may or may not have had binoculars) I saw elderly and foreign families.  Then I made the connection that most of the SUV drivers were under the age of 30.

This was a Sunday afternoon, the week before Super Bowl Sunday, so nothing urgent was going on.  It's 1 pm, where could you possibly be going that you can't even get out of your car to get your mcnugget fix?  Why is our generation so obsessed with going that we forget to slow down, even when we can?

Our generation has grown up in an ever-quickening culture while being told we're never working hard enough, are lazy or entitled or what-have-you from the grumpy old man on his porch.

-Get Off My Lawn! (and get to work)-

What's worse is that we've bought into it!  So much so that we forget that we're allowed to breathe every once in awhile in life.  We're allowed to slow down and enjoy the moments, and we're allowed to take a break.  Whereas in other cultures and in older generations, a slow lifestyle was valued, savoring the seconds and the smiles was held in high regard.  So now, those people are willing to enjoy their Shamrock Shake and take a few seconds to sit back. While our generation is busy revving our engines in the drive-thru, less worried about where we're at and more worried about getting where we're going. But maybe if we all took our foot off the gas pedal in life, enjoyed the moment, and quit giving a crap what people say, we'd be a lot less stressed out.