Speed of Life?

Earlier this week the technology world began to buzz with the announcement of Apple’s new iPad 2 which will be released later this month.   Earlier this fall the iPad was heralded as an innovative new breakthrough technology and not even six months later it’s been modified, improved, and re-loaded.  The pace with which products move through their life cycle in the technology sector is astonishing.  At an increasing rate this level of speed is beginning to manifest itself in all aspects of our lives.  Be it the flow of information through social media, the speed of transactions as a result of mobile payment solutions, or the improvements in shipping and delivery times, life moves incredibly fast.

With this new speed paradigm in place, my opinion is that as people we need to do just the opposite.  While we have all of the tools at our disposal to operate at 100 miles per hour, I think we should pump the brakes and move more slowly.  Human beings aren’t designed to operate at the speed of the world we currently live in.  Anatomically we were designed with two legs, therefore our max speed should be limited to our ability to sprint with these two appendages.  However, the rate and distance at which our minds, emotions, and information travels due to various accelerators greatly exceeds what we could cover on our own two feet.

Therefore, my challenge is for people,  particularly leaders is to be more thoughtful, more candid, and more careful in your actions because the speed of life serves as a multiplier.  It’s phenomenal for positive information and detrimental for the negative.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.  Watch your words, for they become actions.  Watch your actions, for they become habits.  Watch your habits, for they become character.  Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”