Don’t mind me. I’m just the cantankerous old lady over here. Think of me as a female Andy Rooney complete with my own, “I don’t know about you…” rant. So here I go.
I love reading the Sunday paper. It is an activity I look forward to all week. Especially the Metro section of the Post. You know what I don’t love? I don’t love when I read articles like this one. Essentially, the article is about how busy our lives have become these days with work, family, work, and just life in general. We don’t have the time to wait for the cable guy or ahem change the channel for our cat to watch Animal Planet (but only the non-traumatic shows) these days. It’s sad isn’t it?
I read this and I thought, WTF?! Really? Too busy to buy a card for your family members? We’re too busy to scrapbook our own lives? That is what really got me. We are outsourcing our hobbies. I’m all for a little extra help like a nanny and yes, even a personal assistant if you can afford it, but where do you draw the line? What happens when you stop living your life and start letting other people do it for you?
I wrote about this same topic at this time last year when I went to party with a bunch of old friends. The talk turned to how many of us have cleaning companies clean our homes. We have dog walkers and sitters. We have our kids in daycare while we work. Our groceries are delivered to our door and our prescriptions by mail. Anything we want can be done for us with the simple click of the mouse or a call on the phone. This is middle class life these days. Yet we continually feel that we don’t have enough time for ourselves.  I guess that is where the outsourcing of hobbies comes in. How is this possible? Why can’t we stop and realize that other people are living our lives for us? Why can’t we see how sick this makes us as a society?
I don’t claim to have all the answers but I do know this. As a country, America has the lowest vacation rateexcept for Mexico.  We spend more time in the bathroom per year than we do on vacation. Which isn’t saying much since my recent public restrooms visits have almost always guaranteed that I am one stall away from an important call. That is a whole other post unto itself. What I can say is this. We have let ourselves get out of control. Is this a call to action? Perhaps. Maybe while we are reflecting this holiday season (in our work time commute while texting) we should all think about how we can scale back not just to help our wallets but our blood pressure, ourselves and our families.Â
We got the dog to walk it ourselves and love it. Not so someone else could. If we can’t buy birthday cards for our own kids what kind of life are we partaking in? Not much of one. We are merely viewing it from afar. That my friends is no way to live.
