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Just wonderin'


Januarygirl

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...what you all think about how "busy" everyone seems to be these days. I am a child of the 1970s and it sure seems like people had a little more free time to hang out with friends and neighbors. Was it because I was a kid with free time, or were adults really less busy and rushed? I sure miss those days, do you? Thanks for letting me wax nostalgic!

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I believe there were just fewer alternatives, like just 2.5 boring TV chanells, no internet, no ****ing bugged computer keeping you busy, and maybe the jobs were easier too when you weren't told there are 50 unemployed waiting outside; leave if you like.

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I agree. You know, it's not that they HAVE to be that 'busy' either. They have each kid in a different activity and have to drive them 3 blocks to the gym. They have their phone in one hand and electronic organiser in the other as they're trying to curl their hair and move the steering wheel with their knees as they help each kid do up their seatbelt.

I can't STAND going out for lunch with people because I usually sit there entertaining myself while they talk on their cell phone. I don't think it's that people are busier, just shittier manners.

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It could be just nostalgia, but the pace of life was slower in the 70s, people mainly talked to each other face to face (or if you were very luck, you had a phone - we had to wait months for ours and only got one because a new exchange was opened). As people have already pointed out, there were few TV channels, no computers. I thought nothing of walking miles alone, I was quite happy with my own company.

Nowdays, children do tend to be organised to death, with little or no time to develop their imaginations, but then parents are afraid to let them wander because of the perceived dangers.

Slightly off topic, my son and I often talk of taking a canal holiday- you have to live your life at the pace of the canal and the boat (3-5 mph) water has a soothing effect, especially the slap/lap on the hull. As you're mainly dependent on battery power (unless you can plug into the mains), you're restricted in how much TV you can watch (or computer time).

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My 7 year old grand dauchter is busy with things the mom has planned for her almost every day. Girl Scouts, Carate, specially selected and approved TV and Videos, "sleepovers', mom selected and chosen reading, trips to Disneyland, and many other events which the mom has total control over.

The kid has almost no time to think for herself about what to do with what little free time there is left in her day

EVERYTHING I DO, I HURRY THROUGH, SO I CAN DO SOMETHING ELSE,

I WONDER IF I'VE FORGOTTEN SOMETHING,

BUT I HAVE NO TIME TO THINK.....STEPHEN KING and yours truly.

JEMAZ :roll:

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That's what someone I worked with said. Someone was talking about her son's fieldtrips and they go here and learn this and go there and learn that, go to the sewage treatment plant and the cable company, to the legislative grounds (yeah, let's put 7 year olds to sleep) and the other lady says "do they ever go somewhere just to play?"

There is just so much "hurry up and wait" nowadays.

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I know I had a lot of free time as a kid, just doing nothing! I also spent a lot of time outside playing in the yard with the dogs, swinging, and just being introspective. I had quite an imagination back then and still do!

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I've been thinking so much about this. I have two kids and there's so much pressure on them and me. My daughter is in band, and band camp is so intense. In fact, everything the kids take on seems to be way over the top in terms of how much is demanded of them. Scouts is the worst in that category. Even school gets ridiculous. The 70's were definitely more reasonable in terms of pace of life.

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Im a child of the '80 and I often feel nostalgic, it could be cuz I wuz a child with all that free time, but I think its mosty cuz life wuz differant then. I think it also depends on where u live, progress and all, my town changed a lot in 20 years and not all of it is good.

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I know I had a lot of free time as a kid, just doing nothing! I also spent a lot of time outside playing in the yard with the dogs, swinging, and just being introspective. I had quite an imagination back then and still do!

I remember having enough free time as a kid that when someone was mowing their lawn I could lie in the back yard and close my eyes and pretend that it was a motorboat and I was at the beach. Or sit for a whole day on the swing, telling myself stories and singing songs.

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I used to swing for hours and pretend I was part of an episode of the TV show The Avengers! I still love to daydream.....

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I think maybe when someone said kids need a structured life, parents went just a little too far. But isn't that the way of society. It takes everything to extremes.

As a kid, I had lots of free time. I had school of course and homework, and chores, but I still had time to be with friends and just play. We didnt have the money for all those other kid activities but I dont think my family would have done them even if we had the money. I know I enjoyed going fishing with grandpa, and bike riding with friends, and playing cars in the dirt under the mulberry tree with my brothers.

A few years ago, I looked at my life and discovered I was working my life away and not enjoying it. I stepped back, quit the job where I was working 75/80 hours a week and took one where I work 16/24 hours a week. Now I have time to fish again, play golf with my nephews and have fun with family and friends.

I hear families say that both mom and dad have to work to make ends meet now-a-days, then I look at their lifestyle and I know thats not it at all. They work like that both because they want to and because they live way beyond their means, so they can put their kids in every activity under the sun and moon.

I wonder if parents are afraid to spend one on one time with their kids anymore. Seems that way when they plan out their lives with no free time whatsoever to spend with parents.

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I agree Ziff, I worked 7 days a week for about 11 years, I was living to work and not working to live. I was fortunate in that they wanted to shed staff and offered a good Early Retirement Package, which although not enough to live on (mainly because of the size of my mortgage and Council Tax Payments), I could at least ese back and take a part time job.

No stress, I break even (still can't afford a holiday though I talk about what I'd like to do) and I have weekends free. Know too what you mean about the joys of fishing - didn't care if I caught anything, it was the pure pleasure of sitting doing nothing, not even thinking, just listening to the sounds around me and watching nature.

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One consequence of the increased amount of information that attacks us is the increased amount of visible options to the way we lead our lifes. Every added option is something we have to relate to and decide about. On behalf of ourselves and the ones we represent. Every thing that isn't done but felt should have been done adds to stress.

The visible options relate not only directly to ourselves. We also have to feel responsible about (global) evironment, governments of foreign countries, armed conflicts, fatal diseases, endangered species and lot of things more or less out of our control, thus adding primarily frustation.

And why are we taught to compete with each other long before we are being taught to collaborate and depend on each other?

It is strange. We are more visible to one another than ever - and in some sense further away from one another than ever. *sigh*

... I'm so sorry for wasting your time with this. I suppose I just got carried away.

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One consequence of the increased amount of information that attacks us is the increased amount of visible options to the way we lead our lifes. Every added option is something we have to relate to and decide about. On behalf of ourselves and the ones we represent. Every thing that isn't done but felt should have been done adds to stress.

Too many choices; and added stress wondering if you picked the wrong one (again).

The visible options relate not only directly to ourselves. We also have to feel responsible about (global) evironment, governments of foreign countries, armed conflicts, fatal diseases, endangered species and lot of things more or less out of our control, thus adding primarily frustation.

Yeah, we have to be sensitive to all those issues (most of which we can do absolutely nothing about) to avoid being politically incorrect. It seems like being un-PC is worse than being dishonest, or cruel, or just about anything else I can think of offhand. What we say, and how we say it, has become more important than what we actually do/

It is strange. We are more visible to one another than ever - and in some sense further away from one another than ever. *sigh*

This reminds me of the Japanese concept of the EIghtfold Fence, designed to ensure inner privacy in an overcrowed environment. Technology, the internet, information sharing and increasingly sophisticated communication has taken away way too much privacy; I for one find this disturbing and stressful in itself.

... I'm so sorry for wasting your time with this. I suppose I just got carried away.

Not at all - I thought this was a great post! Lots of food for thought.

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