Thoughts on human nature

As I was in the gym today, riding my virtual 10 miles on the exercise bike, the guy on the stairmaster next to me got a call on his cell phone. As I listened to him, I began to ruminate on the quirks we, as humans, have and on the direction our societal interactions are heading. So these are my random thoughts on human nature today.

What a state the world is in when we're impatient with microwave ovens, computers and air travel. My ancestors were Mormon pioneers who walked for months across the same country that it now takes me a matter of hours to traverse in a plane. They cooked their oatmeal in a pot over a fire. The whole process for them took more than likely at least a good third of an hour or more. For me...maybe two minutes in a microwave. They corresponded with loved ones "across the pond" in England via handwritten letters that took several weeks to arrive. Now I can send the same message in a matter of seconds.

In spite of all our modern conveniences, we still complain about how long it takes our computer to boot up in the morning, or we tap our fingers waiting for the microwave to signal that our cocoa is finally hot, or we moan and gripe when our flight is delayed by half an hour or so.

What is it about human nature that makes us rush to be first? I'm driving down the freeway, a mile from my exit and I pull out, pass the car in front of me and get back in the right lane. Why? So I can be one car length ahead of where I started and thereby arrive one second earlier than that person? Chances are we're going to meet up, side by side, at the next red light anyway, so what did I really gain? Maybe an extra second or two of waiting at the light while he or she casually got just as far along the road as I did, but at a much more leisurely pace. (Unless, like me, that driver was stressing about the fact that now he was going to arrive one second later than I was, and so he spent the time trying to catch up to me while I tried to keep him behind.)

I see the same phenomenon in our children. When I was a teacher and I'd call the students to line up...inevitably there would be a mad dash to see who could be the first one at the door.

Maybe it has to do with our competitive natures and the fact that very few remember who came in second in most competitions. Or maybe it's our vanity getting the best of us: a thinking that being the first one in line also means that we are the most visible. I would often tell my students the story of my grandfather and the time he was first. Now granted, he was never one to rush to the front of a line, but on this day he happened to arrive at the stop light first. The light changed and he started through the intersection and got hit by a car coming the other way.

So, it's not always good to be first.

Just my wandering thoughts for today.