The speed of life

Last Sunday I spent the entire day gardening. The weather was prefect, the flowers and planters were gorgeous and the whole neighborhood was abuzz with lawnmowers, children biking and everyone on Griffin Ave finally showing signs of thawing. It was good for the soul, it really was. But when I found myself doing some copywriting amid the weeding, planting, digging and reflecting, I realized I still have not been cured.

Here is a post I originally wrote for my personal blog back in January. I’ve tried to keep it as true to the original as possible, but I did a little editing last week, while I was having dinner with a colleague, returning emails, writing a birthday card for my sister (whose birthday was the week before), sipping a cold beer and writing copy for the next day’s work deadline.

Original post:

It has not yet been diagnosed, but I believe I’ve caught a pretty serious case of attention deficient disorder (ADD). I’m showing all the classic symptoms (as listed by mayoclinic.com, sort of):

• Fails to pay close attention to details
• Has trouble sustaining attention
• Man, these sweet potato fries are good
• Appears to not be listening, even when spoken to directly
• Has difficulty following thr
• Forgets things often
• Appears to not be listening, even when spoken to directly

And unlike the common cold germ, which can live on surfaces for up to 48 hours, the ADD bug is even tougher to elude. In fact, it’s all around all of us, reaching us, each and every day. “But ADD’s not contagious,” you say? The heck it isn’t.

The average person takes in 3000 advertising messages per day. That’s just unsolicited ad messaging; it doesn’t even include texts, tweets, Facebook updates, emails or normal business dialogue. Plus, that stat is from 2007, meaning it’s completely outdated. On a side note: Does anyone remember writing papers in high school using a bibliography page? You know the one, filled with books published in 1982 and still thought to be relevant?

Those days are gone, my friends. And while many of you may be saying “good riddance”, and others of you are saying “I wasn’t even born in 1982,” I personally miss the simpler times.

I’m most nostalgic in the mornings when I’m multitasking by brushing my teeth in the shower. Or when I decide to skip the hair dryer because open car windows can do the same job. Of course, the highway noise does impede my ability to hear the voicemail messages I’m picking up on my way into the office — even though I will be there in less than 10 minutes. And man, do those 10 minutes move slowly. (Why, oh why, won’t those other cars just get out of my way already? What are they, from 1982?)

Once I arrive at the office, I can finally concentrate – on email, returning a client call, that new creative brief, a routing that’s due at 10 am, some concepts for a little thing called a new business pitch and eventually, hanging up my coat.

When I go to get water, I end up getting coffee because I can’t remember why I’m in the kitchen. I never drink the coffee because I forgot I don’t like it. So it sits on my desk, like a prop, and obstructs my view of the very important document I seem to have misplaced. So I go to get water instead. And end up with a soda. Which now lives next to the coffee.

Despite  my dehydration, I have to go to the ladies room. Once I get to the hallway, I’m totally unclear on why I’m out there. So I go to the Riverwalk for some fresh air – and man, does that river make me have to pee. On my way back to the office, I say hello to a colleague who mumbles something about a project I’ve never heard of as she sprints past me. And then compliments me on my hair. Until that moment, I didn’t even know she had caught ADD too.

And that, my friends, is the speed of my life.