Healthy and self-respecting Americans tolerate nothing that's slow. Not trains, not coffeemakers, not toasters, not online purchases, not education, and definitely not success.
Speed, finality, and pressure are in the American DNA. And it shows. We rush as a nation to be first politically. We struggle as individuals to make profitable decisions before the sale ends, before the deal gets away, before we wind up on the bottom end of a very high social ladder to climb. We move relentlessly from one job to another in search of the perfect one. No grass grows under our feet. Ever.
So, along the way, we swallow a lot of Tums, forego a lot of vacation time, take a lot of sleeping pills.
And yet, there are whole segments of life that cannot be avoided, that must simply be borne. And, at the same time, are more important than they look at first glance.
