Although technology can have a positive impact, Ritik Shenoy explains why it is acceptable to sometimes slow down.
Technology and inventions have initially been created to make our life easier. But lately, why has it been feeling like we work harder? Living in the bay region, it is almost impossible to ignore the vast impacts of technology. We always hear about the prices of incredibly high accommodation, or this new breakthrough. Something faster, easier and better. There is always this constant pressure of “what is the continuation”. And it often seems difficult to follow. Once, I decided to go to my Java class after school. I did not expect much, but when I entered, the room was completely excited.
Each chair, each computer, occupied by a student with his eyes stuck on the screen, typing on his keyboards as their lives depended. It was as if they were trying to prove something, and not being there meant that you were late. At that time, he didn’t even have the impression that we learned, I felt like I was competing. I started to wonder, do we really do this because we like to do it, or because we are afraid of not doing it? Are we motivated by passion or fear?
By the fear of missing? Or even the fear of feeling invisible or unimportant in an obsessive world on speed and success? I am fascinated by technology, but I also hate what technology does.
Do not get me wrong, innovation can do great things. But somewhere along the race to be always “in advance”, we seem to have confused the more difficult work for a better future. In life, everything should not be optimized, every watch moment should not be productive and all entries do not need an immediate exit. Geoffrey Chaucecer, an English poet, said one day “Time and the tide are not waiting for any man”, but I think we have to learn to wait until time, to slow down and to ask ourselves – what do we really want to do with our lives? With a perspective, I am Ritik Shenoy.