Chotto Matte

I used to like the word (or at the least, didn't dislike it) but now whenever I hear it mentioned, I can't help but feel annoyance over it.

Instant.

In the not-so-distant past (think 10 years or so), instant was a word you used to describe quick-fix coffee, noodles, and maybe Polaroids and photo IDs. But as far as I remember, that was pretty much it.

Nowadays, it's almost a sin not to include "instant" as a feature for products and services you use. Heck, they even have instant "home-cooked" meals! (available at your favorite supermarkets nationwide).

If we can accept the word "instant" to be annexed to a phrase that means "painstakingly prepared," what have things come to?

I suppose what I'm trying to say here, indirectly, is this:


"Whatever happened to waiting?"


Has everyone's pace quickened all too much that waiting has become a nuisance? To place it in business parlance, has waiting become such a problem, that there is a viable market opportunity to eliminate it?

It is likely that I may just be waxing romantic about waiting. (At the breaking hours of dawn, I suppose some leeway can be given for that.)

However, don't be mistaken into taking me for someone who doesn't care about time. If at all, I value my time and I would like to think I value other people's time too. Case in point, I come to appointments either early or on the dot. I kid you not when I say that not making your appointment with me at the set time is about the most heinous crime you can ever commit.

But isn't there a fundamental differnce between being made to wait because one is tardy and simply waiting?

All the more so now, I welcome waiting.

Lately I catch myself shifting from one task to another. Pounding, pounding, pounding all the time just to get a job out of the way only to have it replaced immediately by another. I find myself saying the word "Now." and "Right away" more often and I can't say that I like what I'm seeing.

The way I see it, the proverbial rub lies in this: the more you keep pressuring tasks to happen quick and instant, the harder it is to slow down. the more difficult it is to wait.

What happens then is that when you get to the things that work best when you take as much time as needed (from home-cooked meals to words of encouragement), you tend to go through these in the same manner as you would with the hurried tasks.


The result: Bland dinners and half-hearted gestures.


At some point, one grows sick of them. Sick enough that it has gotten to that place where words were thought of and written down to articulate the feeling.


So you might be wondering: The whole point of all this is what?

Let me see....




...I'd better think about it more.




Can you wait?