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1、Quick Fix SocietyJanet Mendell Goldstein1.My husband and I just got back from a weeks vacation in West Virginia. Of course, we couldnt wait to get there, so we took the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a couple of interstates. Look at those gorgeous farms! my husband exclaimed as pastoral scenery slid by u
2、s at 55 mph. Did you see those cows? But at 55 mph, its difficult to see anything; the gorgeous farms look like moving green checkerboards, and the herd of cows is reduced to a few dots in the rear-view mirror. For four hours, our only real amusement consisted of counting exit signs and wondering wh
3、at it would feel like to hold still again. Getting there certainly didnt seem like half the fun; in fact, getting there wasnt any fun at all.2. So, when it was time to return to our home outside of Philadelphia, I insisted that we take a different route. Lets explore that countryside, I suggested. T
4、he two days it took us to make the return trip were filled with new experiences. We toured a Civil War battlefield and stood on the little hill that fifteen thousand Confederate soldiers had tried to take on another hot July afternoon, one hundred and twenty-five years ago, not knowing that half of
5、them would get killed in the vain attempt. We drove slowly through main streets of sleepy Pennsylvania Dutch towns, slowing to twenty miles an hour so as not to crowd the horses and horse carriages on their way to market. We admired toy trains and antique cars in country museums and saved 70 percent
6、 in factory outlets. We stuffed ourselves with spicy salads and homemade bread in an all-you-can-eat farmhouse restaurant, then wandered outside to enjoy the sunshine and the herds of cowsno little dots this timelying in it. And we returned home refreshed, revitalized, and reeducated. This time, get
7、ting there had been the fun.3. Why is it that the featureless turnpikes and interstates are the routes of choice for so many of us? Why doesnt everybody try slowing down and exploring the countryside? But more and more, the fast lane seems to be the only way for us to go. In fact, most Americans are
8、 constantly in a hurryand not just to get from Point A to Point B. Our country has become a nation in search of the quick fixin more ways than one.4. Now instead of later: Americans understood the principle of deferred gratification. We put a little of each paycheck away for a rainy day. If we wante
9、d a new sofa or a week at a lakeside cabin, we saved up for it, and the banks helped us out by providing special Christmas Club and vacation Club accounts. If we lived in the right part of the country, we planted corn and beans and waited patiently for the harvest. If we wanted to be thinner, we sim
10、ply ate less of our favorite foods and waited patiently for the scale to drop, a pound at a time. But today we arent so patient. We take out loans instead of making deposits, or we use our credit card to get that furniture or vacation triprelax now, pay later. We buy our food, like our clothing, rea
11、dy-made and off the rack. And if were in a hurry to lose weight, we try the latest miracle diet, guaranteed to take away ten pounds in ten days. unless were rich enough to afford liposuction.5. Faster instead of slower: Not only do we want it now; we dont even want to be kept waiting for it. This ge
12、neral impatience, the I-hate-to-wait attitude, has infected every level of our lives. Instead of standing in line at the bank, we withdraw twenty dollars in as many seconds from an automatic teller machine. Then we take our fast money to a fast convenience store (why wait in line at the supermarket?
13、), where we buy a frozen dinner all wrapped up and ready to be put into the microwave. unless we dont care to wait even that long and pick up some fast food instead. And if our fast meal doesnt agree with us, we hurry to the medicine cabinet foryou guessed itsome fast relief. We like fast pictures,
14、so we buy Polaroid cameras. We like fast entertainment, so we record our favorite TV show on the VCR. We like our information fast, too: messages flashed on a computer screen, documents faxed from your telephone to mine, current events in 90-second bursts on Eyewitness News, history reduced to Bicen
15、tennial Minutes. Symbolically, the American eagle now flies for Express Mail. How dare anyone keep America waiting longer than overnight?6. Superficially instead of thoroughly: Whats more, we dont even want all of it. Once, we lingered over every word of a classic novel or the latest best seller. To
16、day, since faster is better, we read the condensed version or put a tape of the book into our cars tape player to listen to on the way to work. Or we buy the Cliffs Notes, especially if we are students, so we dont have to deal with the book at all. Once, we listened to every note of Beethovens Fifth Symphony. Today, we dont have the time; instead, we can enjoy 26 seconds of that famous da-da-da-DUM themeand 99 other musical excerpts a
