You know what they say happens when you are over the hill? You pick up speed, of course. Darned if it isn’t true and I think I may know why, at least in my case. Older people tend to cast off things that are no longer useful (my mother almost stripped her house) and eliminate activities and associations that no longer give them pleasure. Perhaps the feeling is that life’s fuse is burning shorter and we don’t have a minute to squander on non-rewarding things. I’ll leave that to psychologists. I just held a microscope over my own changes and found them interesting. Here are some of the things I now do.
- Choose microwave over crock pot (all that planning, you know)
- No longer compare purchases strolling store to store, but on Internet
- Encourage e-mails instead of time wasting phone calls (anti-social, I know)
- During commercials, play show recorded earlier on TV and get two in very little more time
- Skim newspaper articles instead of reading every little thing. I’ve seen most on Internet anyway.
- Crave news instantly from Twitter, treating “refresh” like a one-armed bandit in the casino when things are really breaking.
- Revel in flash fiction and haiku (reading and creating)
- Love challenge of squeezing my thoughts into 140 characters on Twitter, making every word count.
For what do I squirrel away all this time, you might be thinking. Family, friends, good books (or slutty books, if I like), working on my house and first garden, exercising, keeping an eye on government, doing photography, matching wits with my cats, any darn thing I enjoy – and nothing I don’t.
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