I have often wondered about this. Today I was forced to think more when an incident happened. I was driving back after picking up my daughter from college. While taking an exit, two lanes were going towards the exit, merging into a single lane. I was on the right one and driving slowly, a few cars were ahead of me. Suddenly a car came in fast from the left lane and was just about to hit another one while merging. Nothing untoward happened thankfully but I wondered why people are in such a rush. As I was thinking I thought about other instances when this happens.

It may be due to various causes, but it is a pretty common occurrence for most of us. Is it because of our busy lifestyles? Our personal schedules are so packed that we don’t have time. Work, family, social commitments, and other areas are all the same. This can create a sense of rush inside us, impatience at the heart of it. Is it because of technology? Smartphones are like supercomputers in our hands. It has created that urge in us to respond to those messages or those emails that may pop up on our phones immediately. Long commutes, city traffic congestions, and other delays make us restless as a society. We try to cut corners to shave those extra minutes, not realizing that 5-10 min save here and there won’t make a difference in the 24-hour day. However, it could make a huge difference if we encounter some unfortunate situation because of that rush.

Work Pressure has also contributed to this impatience. We have deadlines to meet, and there is a rush to do things. This gets ingrained inside our brains and we exhibit the symptoms outside work too. It could be cultural, society expects us to always be productive and efficient, creating a constant impatience within us. Over the period of time, our time management skills have also been affected. We take more time to do the same work. To catch up we have to be rushing in our tasks and be in that constant rush. We also overcommit. It could again be due to societal pressures or our inability to say No. I have written a separate article on that so won’t go in here.

Stress is another big factor, It could be the fear of losing your job. Fear of family discord, or due to something else. The stress builds inside us and we are not able to deal with it leading to that panicked state of impatience. Peer pressure also leads to it. If we see someone being more efficient we try to outdo them with more work and overcommitment leading to that rush.

In the grocery stores

This is something I have seen happening too often. We would be filling our cart and then ambling towards a checkout aisle. While checking where there is the least traffic, we would zero in one when suddenly out of thin air someone will zip in ahead of us. You wonder what the hurry is, what is that 5 min saved, going to do for them. If someone didn’t zip in, people would be standing looking at their watches cursing inside their heads about why the line wasn’t moving fast enough.

While taking a lift

This is another instance where people show their impatience. Just imagine you entering the building and going towards a lift how many times have you tried to stop the lift or tried to open it by inserting your hand or foot inside while the door was about to close? We don’t have the patience to wait for it to come back. We want to get in and not miss it. Imagine we are putting our hands and feet in danger for those 2 minutes we may have to wait. It is a piece of machinery what if it fails and something happens? Isn’t your hand or foot more important than those 2 minutes you may have saved?

Driving through the yellow light

How many times have you sped your way through a yellow light? Ever so often we arrive near a light and see it change from green to yellow. There are so many times I have seen people stepping on the accelerator and speeding their way through the light as it changes or has already changed to red. Yellow lights are supposed to make you slow down and stop. We are so much in a hurry that many times we just speed through. We don’t have the time to wait in the traffic light for those 2–3 minutes as it changes back to green.

Driving fast to save minutes to reach a destination.

I have also seen people driving fast on the highways, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why people put their lives at risk. If you drive miles and miles and even go 10 miles over the driving limit, it will not save you more than 10–15 min. In the process though we are putting our lives on the line. The response time is much less at high speeds you don’t have enough time to react to an unforeseen error either yours or of someone else on the road. So many times, I have seen people zipping around from one lane to the other as they don’t have the patience to drive in the slow traffic. Agreed that no one likes slow traffic but is it worth it to take that chance? You may consider yourself an expert and maybe you are one, for driving but others on the road can make a mistake too which can cost you heavily.

Why are we so impatient?

At the core of it, it is impatience that makes us hurry up. Day in and day out we are becoming more impatient as a society. Is it a human tendency to be impatient or is it something else? What makes us so fidgety, is it that we want to take matters into our own hands. Can’t those extra waiting time minutes be spent to reduce the risk and make this world a much safer place? There may be numerous other instances where we want to rush and save those minutes. It is time that we take a deep breath and think of what is important in life. A few minutes saved here and there are not important, important is that we realize someone is waiting for us at home or connected with our well-being. Take that extra step and think about what you must rush for.

We need to look at our priorities, practice some time management techniques, set some boundaries, and learn to say no when necessary. Stress management can help reduce the sense of urgency. Strike a balance between productivity and self-care to overcome the constant rush and impatience to find a more easier pace in our life.