What Speed Means to Marketplace Listeners

		Read More Speed Commentaries • Straight Up • Define Our Goals • At What Cost? • Time and Fruit • Workaholism • Faster and Faster • Overcoming Limitations • Length of Time • A State of Mind • Theory of Relativity • What About Honolulu? • A New Career From Speed • Speed Is Nothing New • It's All Relative • We're Being Sold Speed • Speed Means Missing Out • Time is Priceless • The Ride Keeps Getting Faster • Family First • Slowing Down for Frugality • Speed Serves Me • A Fortunate Layoff • Interruptions • Our Country's Material Obsession • A Personal Slowdown • Using Speed to My Advantage • I Don't Miss Much • Not Enough Hours In the Day • Peaceful • Speed, Oh Speed • Out of Control • I Live By Speed • Happy to Be Relaxed • Speed Is Choice Index of Comments

A Personal Slowdown (June 27)
While speed is itself an objective measure of various processes, our modern obsession with speed is arguably pathological.

We can make microprocessors arbitrarily fast, but the pace at which we effectively function is limited by our biology. Attempts to exceed our physiological limits (aka overdrive) by sleeping too little and doing too much invariably leads to indigestion, insomnia, and a stupor-induced indifference.

I am one of the fortunate ones who was laid-off by the recent economic slowdown, but in order to personally "slow down" I had to turn down job opportunities, embrace my sloth, and for a time, be willing to nap with my cat, Walter, or just read.

Perhaps it is us Americans who are so chronologically myopic as to be unable to imagine any time period longer than a 30-year mortgage. The fascinating reality is that we are inhabiting the most narrow sliver of time absorbed in the now, in the new, and in the next thing to come.

Yet any but the most dour amoung us can doubt, in spite of any misgivings, that the best is yet to be.

Timothy Badonsky
Cardiff by the Sea, CA

Using Speed to My Advantage (June 27)
For me, speed has always had a good connotation. As a young man I was always the fastest—in sports, speed was an area I always had as an advantage over my opponents. In business I am usually the first to grasp ideas and react with speed to changing conditions. So, speed is good for me, as I can usually use it to my advantage. My life is fast-paced and that is the way I like it; I find it more enjoyable that way. When the pace slows I become more lethargic and less in tune; conversly, the faster the pace the more focused I become.

Jeff V. Brazel
San Diego, CA

I Don't Miss Much (June 27)
Speed is a way to lose touch with your humanity. When in a hurry you miss the smell in the air, the sound of a bird, the reflection of light on water. You also miss the pain in an employee's plea for help, the risk in that small blip of a number on the bottom of the page, the uncertainty in an executive's presentation. I will let a phone ring, shrug off the cry for an emergency meeting, and ignore the constant flood of emails until that last calm breath puts a smile on my face saying it's OK to go forward. Ya' know? I don't miss much.

Bernie Hourihan
Ft. Lauderdale, FL

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