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NEWSLETTERS
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Lindemann Chimney Supply sells wholesale only to the chimney and hearth industry.
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 2/1/2004
"Oops, That was Premature"
Back in 1959 a national magazine warned us of an “onrush of a new age of leisure.” Eight years later noted sociologists came before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on labor to predict, with great confidence, that most Americans would soon be enjoying a 22-hour workweek.
They also said, many of us would be retiring by 38 and our biggest problem would be how to handle all that extra free time.
Those prognostications remind me of the Decca records executive who turned down the chance to sign a garage rock band from England because “guitar music is on the way out.” The band was the Beatles who did okay with three guitars and a set of drums.
What happened to the Age of Leisure? Well, we took money instead. We opted for a higher material standard of living instead of time off.
You don’t remember being offered the choice? We decided to work more rather than less, and more of us went to work. We gave up the Age of Leisure for the Age of Anxiety with the norm being two-income households.
How about you? Is the tape of your life stuck on fast forward? Is your game plan a two-minute drill with a no huddle offense? You could be suffering from “constant crisis management.”
Crisis management isn’t really new. Philosopher Will Rogers defined it as well as anybody when he observed, “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
Our whole lives are controlled by “time.” Can you imagine going through a whole day without knowing what time it is; that would almost be impossible. Clocks are staring at us from inside our vehicles, off office walls, or down from the top of the bank building.
Can you imagine life without time keepers? Probably not. We’re not just aware of time; we’re driven by time, controlled by time, engulfed by time.
Way back in the 1960’s Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones told us in one of their classic songs “time is on my side.” Time must truly be on the Stones side because their still going strong in their late fifties, But I’m not so sure it’s always on our side. Sometimes it almost seems like “time” is the enemy.
Would you respond “yes” or “no” to the statement: “I work better under pressure.” Many of us seem to think so. We claim the trait of “being highly motivated self-starters,” and we brag about our ability to perform under deadlines.
Running through life suppresses the immune system, hampering the natural formation of white blood cells. That, in turn, opens up to a variety of ills, some categorized as “psychosomatic” (all in your head), but many are very real. Life in the fast lane cannot only make you sick, it can also kill.
The best advice we ever got, and never listened to, came from an old band called the Lovin’ Spoonful when they sang, “Slow down, you move too fast.”
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BACK ISSUES OF OUR NEWSLETTERS
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
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