By Mallory
So you’re at the grocery store, or Target, or wherever you shop, I guess. You’re at the cash register paying for your stuff. The cashier hands you the receipt and your change.
What happens next?
If you’re like me - and a lot of other people, I’m guessing - you hustle to put your change away and get out of that line as fast as you can, even if there’s no one behind you and even if you’re not in a hurry.
It's kind of an unnecessarily stressful moment. It's not like the cashier isn't going to start helping the person behind you in line, anyway. Why do we feel like we need to hurry? Something is propelling us out of that place, and we don’t really stop to think about what that is.
All of us same people also get really, really stressed out on the day before our summer vacation. There’s packing (but before that, pre-packing laundry.) Packing for family members who didn’t pack. Stopping the mail. Figuring out ways to make the house look like someone’s living in it for the next week as to not lure burglars. Getting last-minute work done. Finishing up your actual vacation plans. Going to the ATM. Cleaning, because who would want to come home from their vacation to a messy house? That would be so stressful. Then it takes until like two days into the vacation to calm down and some people stay in panic mode during the whole trip.
My love language is quality time. I've verified this with a Facebook quiz, which is, of course, totally legitimate. But it makes sense, because spending time with people is really important to me. When someone doesn't have the time to talk to me for longer than 2.1 (or maybe 0.21) seconds, I notice.
Time’s probably pretty important to everyone, right? And we’re all living like every second matters, which is in some ways a really good thing. But what are all these seconds adding up to? Whatever it is, I think it’s killing our relationships. When I watch a friend rush away from me faster than the time it takes them to cram some nickels and a Target receipt into their wallet, apparently because there are about a million other more important places they could be, it hurts. And I’d be really scared to know how many people to whom I’ve done exactly the same thing.
We’re in a rush, and, sure, it’s because we’re stressed. But there’s more to it than that. We literally don’t have time for people (so how is your roommate?) and it’s killing our relationships with each other. And we don’t even have time for ourselves (how much sleep did you get last night?), which is probably killing us, literally.
I wish we could all treat each other like we’re not busy. Do we have time for that?