Monday moaning safety stress!
Okay not feeling the best after a weekend of handy man odds and jobs around the neighbourhood. With Christmas coming up I do help some of the elders with small electrical problems and putting up trees. It has been a lot of fun and had red ears from all the chatting, but today my head is about to explode. And the talks gave me lots to think about.
Imagine all the things we invented to have more time for other things. Unaware maybe of the impact it will have on us creatures of habit. People who get used in a very fast manner to small things. Though we like to think we adept instead of getting used to.
We develop more products to aid our life and to lower stress as much as possible by giving time to rest or do other stuff. At the same time these helpful gadgets are there to keep us sharp. That is what is told to us.
In cars for example with rear view camera or detection systems speed limiters that can read road signs. Each are said to keep us sharp and alert. But does that really work tat way.
If lets say we go back in time a little. We invented a kitchen timer so that you could relax until the little bell went. That way you didn’t have to keep checking your pan or oven and as it turned out it helped gain more time to dust or clean. Not once did it make us sharper we just waited for a beep.
Here is a thought or possible scenario; what if you was balancing on one leg with a ming vase in your hand and the bell rang. How sharp and alert would you be. The stress levels will rise within a second that could possibly result in you dropping a 50.000 dollar vase. Since that bell indicates that your cooking time is up any longer and it might burn. HURRY!
Instead of being sharp and checking the clock every five minutes we wait till the bell rings and have a heat beat rise 10% in a split second. Not very stress or care free. We are going dull, loose our sharpness and go blunt awaiting a warning. And it didn’t take us that much time to get used to it.
Okay it may have resulted we give ourselves an extra five minutes by setting the timer 5 minutes shorter. But how fast does one get used to that and what happens when you are occupied in something that still takes your concentration. I pretty much can assure you that we forget.
In a car it won’t be no different. We just wait for a beep and since we are beginning to become more sluggish we just hit the break while we drove 100 kilometres an hour and the damn car read we were only allowed 60.
Soon as we install alarms to gain our attention, our mind relaxes until that moment we truly hear the alarm. We got so much time to do anything until the beep. And as the mind relaxes so does our body until that very moment we need to spring into action and feel there hasn’t been enough time.
Nothing sharp about it just raising stress levels in 0.1 second.
Everything we do to relieve stress as much as possible is turning out to be raising stress in shorter periods of time. And than we laugh at a commercial that says in 2040 the heart patients will have doubled.
How is it possible that in the past years our heart problems have increased while we invented more to gain more relax time.
At the same time we also see that jobs get more stressful. Less people who worked a job due to doing more electronically, yet more work needed to be done and controlled by one person.
Funny how we think to take stress away and see more stress arise in the ranks.
How many post man do you think will loose the job the more we send by mail or do electronically. Each of these men and women need another job. Being jobless is stressful. It starts with lesser days they will walk through the neighbourhood. Do we need that much more stress.
I for one am a person who finds it hard and stressful to work inside. I loved being a mailman, the outside. Sure rains sucks cold sucks but it beats holed up inside a cubical. It begs to question if a person like me would be stress free with a new job behind a computer inside.
But never mind me. We talked about cars taking care of simple tasks we should be doing. None of the safety instalments that should keep us sharp will work against us. We will be people that would push the gas pedal until we hear the beep. We won’t pay any attention around us when the car parks itself. We simply won’t.
We have a commercial that says you need to nod behind the wheel to keep your speed in check in living areas. It doesn’t work that way does it. We can’t keep nodding. We won’t keep nodding soon as our car takes over reading signs or have electronic in the road to send information.
No we will pretty much be on facebook, twitter or some other app that is installed these days in modern cars. We won’t listen to the revs of an engine to adjust our speed. No that kind of sharpness is gone.
Turning blunt and dull is what we are pretty much doing. Cold if you will as we do not seem to care any more the more our things think for us. We stop thinking or even reacting until it might just be to late and again raise that stress level in a matter of seconds.
Maybe it is all connected. Maybe we should properly do some kind of research. Or better, take a day to see if one can watch and sharpen their own senses by stopping to rely on aids.
Safety stress. We stress because we want to keep things safe so we invent and think we adept by changing our environment to fit our needs. Have more time to relax and feel safe. Only to maybe cause more stress in shorter times if our safety comes in danger.
Best wishes
Ranting Crow
Ranting Crow 