Time

Thinking of the Holidays...

Suppose that there was a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do? Spend every cent, of course!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft (unlike Congress and the Federal Government!) Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of it.

Attention Deficit Society

I'm convinced that everyone's really just looking for a shortcut. Over my many years of working with people privately and in groups, the clearer it is that many people just want an easier way out. Well, not because we're lazy (well, some are); it's more that we're completely overwhelmed.

Half the time, we all feel like we're drinking from an information fire hose. If you're anything like me, you're bombarded, and I literally mean bombarded by information, all day long. There's unwanted information (ads and pop-ups) and also WANTED information, stuff you asked for or paid for, and actually do want to get (like something you're trying to learn to improve yourself or how you do things). Not to mention the hundreds of emails we all get each day that we can't always respond to.

It almost seems like we're turning into an "attention deficit" society. Blame it on whatever you want (the media, the Internet, too many TV stations, spam, satellite radio channels, TiVO, etc.), we all don't have enough attention to spread out to do everything we want, including the stuff we don't. So we sometimes go into inaction mode and don't do ANYTHING. It's getting harder to keep focused, harder to make decisions, and mental concentration on just ONE thing seems to be getting more and more rare.

I'm noticing the people I work with also have WAY TOO MUCH to pay attention to. In addition to their work, they've got families, responsibilities, email, bills, and personal and professional development they need to focus on. In an age when we all have instant access to a ridiculous amount of information, making sense of it all and putting it all into place seems to be the hardest thing. And then we beat ourselves up about it.

Entitlement Attitudes

As I prepare to begin teaching college classes this fall, I have begun thinking about the apparent change that has occurred since the time I began teaching. I have noticed it in my classrooms in particular. When I began teaching "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" most of the students came to school to learn. Those who were not interested in learning, did not expect to get an A or didn't show up all together. In fact they were happy to merely pass the class. Grades were actually an indicator of performance.

Well, in recent years that has changed. Most students now come to class expecting to get an A in every class. And many of those expecting an A, believe they should receive an A without even doing any work. They believe that just attending the class somehow qualifies them to receive a top grade. When they are reminded of the "requirements" in the syllabus they act as though I am speaking a foreign language.

I have even had students miss classes and not turn in assignments, and at the end of the semester come to me and ask if they can do an "extra credit" project so as to receive an A in the class. I used to try to help them understand the error of their ways only to be frustrated (the foreign language response!) Last year a colleague told me what she says and now I say the same thing. When a student comes to me asking for extra credit after not doing required assignments I now say, "I am sorry, but I don't think that would be fair to you. You see, since you have not be able to handle the regular class assignments, it would unfair to have you do extra work at this time." And I believe that is exactly true.

I have a feeling that my experience with the "entitlement attitude" is merely a snapshot of what is happening throughout our society. I am not sure why it is happening, but I do not believe it is biologically caused. I think that people are learning it. I believe that they learn it in two ways: first, from the larger society; and, second from their own personal experience.

Dr. Larry Pfaff