The days of cherishing are over!

For those who cherished Maggi from childhood to adulthood and the other in-between hoods know it very well that it was never a 2-minute task. It was quicker than the other laborious foods that took way long to cook and that added to the envy of the Nutri-rich foods lying to be picked up. How could any other food satiate the hunger pangs other than Maggi that kept on flashing the 1^st instant gratification of childhood dopamine. While Maggi reached our homes and ruled our tastebuds from the era of Millennials, the rest of the products and everything under the sun took more than two decades to attain the same status. From food to groceries to music and now pretty much anything you wish for is available literally at your fingertips. The process of cooking, going to a movie theatre or buying music albums in a physical retail store or reading to gain knowledge was always cherished and had its own fun. Those were the ways of attaining small doses of nirvana. The journey was celebrated, and it gave more than its share of drama and enjoyment. The process has been shortened by ultra speed processors and the days are not far when we attain speed of light!

Today, if your thinking is lagging behind the 10-minute threshold (yeah because groceries are getting delivered within that range!), you have every right to think you are good for nothing. Someone somewhere has already beaten you in that game. You still have some chance to prove your worthiness in at least mastering all the ChatGPT prompts, now sold all over as the ‘Must Have’ hacks to corporate wisdom.

We are cherishing fastest finger first these days. We are done enjoying the process. After all, processes can be automated and anywhere everywhere you see a process, you can send them to the automation workshop where you can just provide the input and demand the desired output.

Cherishing had a silent sister called Patience which came to limelight when humans waited for something to unfold. Now, the big brother Haste has taken over everything along with its best friend FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Interestingly, we are still ok for the sun to rise on its own schedule (as if we can do anything about it on planet Earth, that’s why we are exploring other ones), flowers to bloom in silence (no wait, we have already captured that process and can fasten the blooming through the right chemicals) and babies to land in nine months for now, but we are now taught by Haste that nothing good comes after waiting. So, till the time we figure out the process to automate these ones, we will keep Patience as a virtue. By the way, Patience is the master human virtue. Look at loyalty, honesty, politeness and refinedness. They all ride on the Patience wagon. So, if we are getting an ounce impatient every day, then the rest of the virtues are also tagged along and not far behind from being sacrificed.

You can only cherish things if they are delayed otherwise its instant gratification, and you keep jumping from one thing to another. Today, a happy life is equal to the sum of all instant delights packed together with no dull moment and when there’s so much to grab, you don’t want to leave the earth soon. So, we are now busy delaying the ageing process. This definitely needs to develop patience because if longevity loses out, we are finished.

Till that time, when we won’t be ageing fast, we can continue to enjoy life as it happens and believe in the power of natural things that take its due course of time and prepare food and do things just for the pleasure of cherishing rather than submitting to the diktats of big brother Haste.