Another new year

Another new year has dawned upon us......the end of the world didn't happen. Perhaps it was because Psy didn't obtain that magical 1,000,000,000 hits before 20-12-2012. Perhaps it was because the Mayans made a slight error in their calculations. Whatever it is, we are now in 2013. What does the new year herald for us?

Towards the end of 2012, a lot of people I knew commented that time passed so quickly and the end of the year came upon us like a tsunami. It seems that as the years went by, time flew faster and we are running out of time to do all the things we wanted. Is it just because we are getting older? I have a theory why time passes so quickly as the years go by. I blame it on man and its by product technology. Let me explain.

Many many years ago, communication was probably restricted to verbal channels. If you had a message for someone, you had to see that person face to face. It might have taken a couple of days to visit a relative from the next village to say hello. With the invention of paper, it might have taken a couple of hours to write a message on paper and have someone deliver it for you. With the invention of the telephone, instantaneous, provided your relative was at home. With the invention of the mobile phone, it is instantaneous, provided your relative answered the phone. Hey, with SMS, who cares? Just text the hello across!

You save the few minutes previously taken up with going to the printer to collect your printout, walking to the fax machine, punching in a few numbers, waiting for the fax transmission to be completed and going back to your desk, by using email. And the response may come back in a matter of seconds, depending on the typing speed of the opposite party and the Internet speed he/she has access to.

With the reduced amount of time we need to conduct such activities, we can actually squeeze more in a day. With more activities, time would seem shorter. But does it do us any good?

When I used to write letters to my friends, although they were few and far in between, I would spend time to compose the letter carefully to make sure that my message is delivered properly. Nowadays with email, I spend less time with my draft. With SMS or Whatsapp, it is not even complete sentences! My written language has definitely deteriorated. I do not use any more flowery descriptive sentences. My writing is allegedly more concise. I cannot even write a poem anymore. I have lost my rhyme!

I have decided not to make new year resolutions since many years ago. I am not a resolution keeper. In fact, resolutions backfire on me more often than not. Say if I want to lose weight, I will end up eating more. How about making backward resolutions I hear you say. Nah, I tend to keep those. It's selective resolution keeping. So I just do what I want to do when I feel like it. I live for the moment. Not very good in the general scheme of things but very convenient!

Here's wishing one and all a fantastic 2013 with good health and happiness!