I have this burning desire for things to be simple in my life. I understand that life is not simple. Life is what we make it. I want to make my life simpler. Simple doesn't necessarily mean easy and I sure as hell don't wish I was living in The Little House On The Prairie. I love my gadgets, my ipod my laptop my GPS. I just have this feeling that things can be simpler. Remember when you called your boss to take a sick day? They'd just record it and you'd be off for the day. Nowadays we have to go online on the company's intranet, login to the HR site, click the date, the reason for absence, it's submitted to the supervisor, he/she approves it, you are sent a notifier when they approve it, a block is set in your Outlook calendar and it reflects in your company intranet site as having taken a sick day. I realize that somewhere somebody was sold a bill of goods that this was ultimately more efficient than the old way. But where does it stop? Remember when you'd get the phone book out and lookup someones phone number? Nowadays one just types the name of a business into Google and you get their website. And then you scroll down, click on "Contact Us" and then you are given a multitude of ways to get a hold of that business, the last of these options is usually the phone number because God knows, no one wants to be bothered with a phone call. And once you look them up, you can usually find the store hours and the items they sell online and three different ways to order the product and you can sign up to be on their email spam list if you'd like. Can't I just call and ask what time they close and go there? Isn't that efficient? Don't get me wrong, I like to see movie times online and to view my bank account online and pay bills online. But damn, I liked checks and stamps too.
How do we make our lives simpler? I have four email addresses I use frequently. I have a couple more for junk and spam. I have a blackberry and mobile web and I can convert faxes to emails and anything I might need I can find on the web. But what about customer service? What about speaking to someone that speaks my language as a first language? You ever have problems with Direct TV or Cable? That whole process is a nightmare. Great product, but when you have an issue, you're screwed.
Can't gas stations just pump the damn gas for you? Can't grocery stores be more efficient? Why do I have to go through all the damn aisles then take my stuff out of my cart, put them into bags, put the bags back into my cart, take the bags out of my cart and put them into my car, only to get home and take the bags from the car and onto the counter? Can't technology make this simple? Why all the gyration? Can't there be a scanner on my cart, and like a few decent sized bags in the cart already? Why isn't the grocery store like a huge drive-thru? Just make the aisles twice as wide, I'll drive my car through each aisle. That sounds simple enough to me. Or hey, why not put all that stuff on line and someone deliver it to me? That seems simple.
Why is it me that thinks of these things? Can't the phone companies all get together and all use the same damn charger? Shouldn't there be a universal charger for phones, Ipods, stereos etc? Why do I need all these damn chargers? And while I'm at it, why do we need hundreds of different phones and phone companies? We have the technology developing at light speed, why can't they just franchise the damn technology and I can just go to the phone company for all my phone/ internet/TV needs? I like competition, but jeez, can't we just all get along?
The car companies should have been thinking about how to make it simple. Why did GM think they needed to put out the same car with a different name through Chevy, Olds, Saturn and Pontiac? Thats insane. The rule of KISS applies here...Keep It Simple Stupid...KISS. Now look where GM is today. Morons. Nice vision.
I had a good friend in high school named Bobby. Bobby was an interesting guy. He was a terrific soccer player, and got ok grades, and like me, he hated school and never performed schoolastically up to his "potential". He was the most charming guy, he was funny, girls liked him, and he was always asking why about everything. I told him that my parents were taking me to a psychologist once a week because they were worried about why my test scores were top of the heap, yet my performance in school wasn't really up to par. They thought I might need to talk to someone about these matters and that in doing so would help my grades. Wrong. Anyhow, Bobby told his mom, and asked if he could do the same. She said no, they didn't need that, he didn't need that and they were just fine with the way things were with him. But Bobby was a dreamer like me, and he took things too seriously and I just always knew that even though he was kind of a shy guy, that inside, he was wound way too tightly. And after high school, Bobby worked and played soccer in some adult leagues, eventually got married and had baby girl. Before his daughter was a year old, Bobby put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I don't know why he did it, and I suspect no one will ever know the real reason why, or if it really matters. But my guess is that life came at him quickly, and he couldn't cope with it. Life became very complicated as it does for all of us. I believe that Bob needed things to just seem simpler, seem easier, and that he needed life to feel less complicated. I could be wrong, but the idea of everything building in him might have been what sent him over the edge. I miss Bobby.
Why can't I be the guy that delivers potato chips to the gas stations, stocks their shelves, and heads out to the next gas station? Would that simplicity get to me? Would it make me feel too simple? What if I was the guy that goes around and stocks the Coke machines? Seems like good work to me. Do I want things simple or do I just want less stress from life? I don't know what the answer is, but the question is the important part. What makes my life seem so damn complicated? What makes me feel like things need to be simpler? Do they need to be simpler? Do I need a job that has less pressure? A change of scenery? A change in zip code? What if I lived somewhere that had a beach and I could take my girls there every weekend and watch them make sand castles and learn to surf? That would be nice. And it's not that I don't enjoy life because I do. Somehow, I just feel that it could be simpler. Maybe this is all out of my control and life is what it is. I say maybe we all need to turn off the blackberry and forget about email and ignore the 600 channels on my satellite dish. Maybe life would be simpler if I could just stop thinking about this stuff so much. But who would post this garbage on this blog if I didn't? I want life to be simpler but I don't know how. I can't go live with my mom and drive my chevelle all over town. Reason number one is that I haven't had that chevelle in 20 years but reason number two is that you can't go back. Life is complicated. Life is tough. The key I guess, is figuring out how to make it feel less complicated, and seem more simple. How do we do that? I guess by asking the questions, and reconcilling the answers best that we can, filing away the information gathered so that it works for us. Maybe life is one big rationalization. Maybe we need to figure out how to be more rational about the realities in our lives that seem to come at us too quickly. Filing these things away in our brains could help us all. Getting things off the desktop and into the right storage bins may make life feel easier and simpler. I'll never stop asking the questions and trying to see the point in everything, but it's up to me to deal with the answers if ever I get them. Life is not like a box of chocolates, though it's true that you never know what you'll get. Simple may come, easier may never, but how we deal with all of it is infinitely more important than not dealing with it at all.
How do we make our lives simpler? I have four email addresses I use frequently. I have a couple more for junk and spam. I have a blackberry and mobile web and I can convert faxes to emails and anything I might need I can find on the web. But what about customer service? What about speaking to someone that speaks my language as a first language? You ever have problems with Direct TV or Cable? That whole process is a nightmare. Great product, but when you have an issue, you're screwed.
Can't gas stations just pump the damn gas for you? Can't grocery stores be more efficient? Why do I have to go through all the damn aisles then take my stuff out of my cart, put them into bags, put the bags back into my cart, take the bags out of my cart and put them into my car, only to get home and take the bags from the car and onto the counter? Can't technology make this simple? Why all the gyration? Can't there be a scanner on my cart, and like a few decent sized bags in the cart already? Why isn't the grocery store like a huge drive-thru? Just make the aisles twice as wide, I'll drive my car through each aisle. That sounds simple enough to me. Or hey, why not put all that stuff on line and someone deliver it to me? That seems simple.
Why is it me that thinks of these things? Can't the phone companies all get together and all use the same damn charger? Shouldn't there be a universal charger for phones, Ipods, stereos etc? Why do I need all these damn chargers? And while I'm at it, why do we need hundreds of different phones and phone companies? We have the technology developing at light speed, why can't they just franchise the damn technology and I can just go to the phone company for all my phone/ internet/TV needs? I like competition, but jeez, can't we just all get along?
The car companies should have been thinking about how to make it simple. Why did GM think they needed to put out the same car with a different name through Chevy, Olds, Saturn and Pontiac? Thats insane. The rule of KISS applies here...Keep It Simple Stupid...KISS. Now look where GM is today. Morons. Nice vision.
I had a good friend in high school named Bobby. Bobby was an interesting guy. He was a terrific soccer player, and got ok grades, and like me, he hated school and never performed schoolastically up to his "potential". He was the most charming guy, he was funny, girls liked him, and he was always asking why about everything. I told him that my parents were taking me to a psychologist once a week because they were worried about why my test scores were top of the heap, yet my performance in school wasn't really up to par. They thought I might need to talk to someone about these matters and that in doing so would help my grades. Wrong. Anyhow, Bobby told his mom, and asked if he could do the same. She said no, they didn't need that, he didn't need that and they were just fine with the way things were with him. But Bobby was a dreamer like me, and he took things too seriously and I just always knew that even though he was kind of a shy guy, that inside, he was wound way too tightly. And after high school, Bobby worked and played soccer in some adult leagues, eventually got married and had baby girl. Before his daughter was a year old, Bobby put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I don't know why he did it, and I suspect no one will ever know the real reason why, or if it really matters. But my guess is that life came at him quickly, and he couldn't cope with it. Life became very complicated as it does for all of us. I believe that Bob needed things to just seem simpler, seem easier, and that he needed life to feel less complicated. I could be wrong, but the idea of everything building in him might have been what sent him over the edge. I miss Bobby.
Why can't I be the guy that delivers potato chips to the gas stations, stocks their shelves, and heads out to the next gas station? Would that simplicity get to me? Would it make me feel too simple? What if I was the guy that goes around and stocks the Coke machines? Seems like good work to me. Do I want things simple or do I just want less stress from life? I don't know what the answer is, but the question is the important part. What makes my life seem so damn complicated? What makes me feel like things need to be simpler? Do they need to be simpler? Do I need a job that has less pressure? A change of scenery? A change in zip code? What if I lived somewhere that had a beach and I could take my girls there every weekend and watch them make sand castles and learn to surf? That would be nice. And it's not that I don't enjoy life because I do. Somehow, I just feel that it could be simpler. Maybe this is all out of my control and life is what it is. I say maybe we all need to turn off the blackberry and forget about email and ignore the 600 channels on my satellite dish. Maybe life would be simpler if I could just stop thinking about this stuff so much. But who would post this garbage on this blog if I didn't? I want life to be simpler but I don't know how. I can't go live with my mom and drive my chevelle all over town. Reason number one is that I haven't had that chevelle in 20 years but reason number two is that you can't go back. Life is complicated. Life is tough. The key I guess, is figuring out how to make it feel less complicated, and seem more simple. How do we do that? I guess by asking the questions, and reconcilling the answers best that we can, filing away the information gathered so that it works for us. Maybe life is one big rationalization. Maybe we need to figure out how to be more rational about the realities in our lives that seem to come at us too quickly. Filing these things away in our brains could help us all. Getting things off the desktop and into the right storage bins may make life feel easier and simpler. I'll never stop asking the questions and trying to see the point in everything, but it's up to me to deal with the answers if ever I get them. Life is not like a box of chocolates, though it's true that you never know what you'll get. Simple may come, easier may never, but how we deal with all of it is infinitely more important than not dealing with it at all.
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