Modern Americans are accustomed to exerting a tremendous level of control over their environments with relative ease. We move at high speeds inside individual enclosures with full climate control, that we can steer over smooth man-made pathways. This is of course while we take navigation cues from a system that finds our location for us relative to a constellation of satellites, as we listen to audio entertainment when we aren't talking on the phone. All of this is just to get home, where we turn on the lights, and use hot water to wash up, before picking up the remote, so we don't have to walk all the way over to the TV. We toss a meal from the freezer into the microwave for a minute, while we move our laundry from the washer into the dryer. Any of this sounding familiar?
Interestingly, when even a single aspect of the services that support this level of comfort fails, it totally destroys the illusion that we are in full control of the things around us. (Guess who still didn't have electricity at work again today?) Being able to see past that illusion should be a positive thing, since it really is just an illusion, and we are actually at the mercy of both God and the events of the world around us.
There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of modern technological conveniences, and using them to improve and control the environment we live in, but becoming dependent on them can be a real problem. One hundred years ago those services were all completely unavailable, all of the time. That should tell you something about how important or essential those things truly are at the end of the day. It is good that we are able to use these tools to improve our lives, but the level to which it has increased our expectations is probably working against us.
Besides the obvious dependency issues, it can contribute to a deeper problem. Being able to so easily control the things around them, can lead one to expect to be able to control the people around them as well. Technology is by no means the root source of this issue, which has existed forever, but like so many other things, technology takes it to a whole new level. For example twenty years ago, parents couldn't expect their children to stay in constant contact with them, because the means of communication didn't exist to make that a possibility. Finding someone in a crowded area required a precise, predetermined location to meet at, and usually a fair bit of waiting around as well.
I am by no means innocent of all this myself. The tendency to try to control people is a problem I only began to recognize in my own life within the last year or so. (It just comes naturally, when you are someone who always knows the "right" way to do things;) I usually require everyone who is trying to interact with me to have a plan, and am rarely willing to "just wing it." I can be the most patient person the world in certain ways, but in other ways the least. I can't stand it when people are late, seeing that as a waste of time for everyone. This does lead to some well deserved teasing on the rare occasion that I am late myself.
It would be easy to point to my parents as the primary source of this problem, since they make great role models for it. But to do that would be overly simplistic, especially since my brother isn't that way nearly as much, so there must be more too it. They say that recognizing the problem is the first step to solving it. When the issue was first pointed out to me in a way I understood, I was cognizant of it effecting nearly every interaction I had with others. I am seeing it happen a lot less now, so either I am growing in that regard, or am just less conscious of it taking place. I see no reason why I would become blind to it, and I know I am learning to be more flexible, with my own plans and others, so hopefully that means I am growing.
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