Adjusting To Our High-Speed World: 3 Ways To Make Yourself Useful In Today's Society

"High speed" is the new selling point in many of our advertisements. We want fast cars, fast food and, most importantly, fast Internet connection. We live with almost all the information we can manage, right at our fingertips.

If we are hungry, we can speak to our phones and have an entire list of nearby restaurants read to us. If we're feeling extra lazy, we can order the food of our choice from an app and have it delivered right to our doorstep, all while scrolling through our Facebook feed.

This generation is hardwired for multitasking, and as a result, we jam-pack our schedules full of work, socializing, passion and adventure. We have all become professional jugglers due to everything we must handle and the information we constantly process.

I am a product of this fast-paced lifestyle, and I don’t dare question whether this is the direction in which we should be heading. The world is picking up around us, and if we learn to keep up, this whirlwind can be the most fun we’ll ever have.

Here is my advice to those who are having trouble embracing the world as it is, those who have not yet adjusted to a world that moves even faster than Siri:

Over-Involve Yourself

I’ll speak this one from experience. I can remember being a first grader; my mom would pick me up from school and take me to the park for a snack. There, my brother and I would change our clothes and head to several different sports practices and library events until it was time for dinner and bed.

While gymnastics and the reading group at the library are no longer part of my agenda, I learned from an early age that you should be giving each day your all, and going to bed at the end of it with nothing left.

Now is the time of your life where you are exposed to more opportunity than you probably ever will be. You’re young. You’re free. You’re (for the most part) unattached.

Don’t just sit around and wait for life to smack you in the face! Go out and be a part of it. Meet up with other 20-somethings just trying to figure themselves out.

Join a club or train for a marathon. New ideas and new passions come from trying new things. Seek out novelty in your life, and never be afraid to be “too busy.”

Use Social Media To Inspire

We live in an era where information is easy to come by, and people are busier than ever; it is easy to see what others are doing, and to let it inspire us.

We have the opportunity to discover and chase big dreams. Sometimes, the best items to check off our bucket lists are the ones we never wrote down to begin with.

We can simply hop on Pinterest and see a picture of a corner of the world that we never knew existed, or find out about a cause that never crossed our minds. We can search the Internet to find out about companies that spark our interests, and before we know it, we could be walking through the doors of these companies as employees.

New passions come from new discoveries, and new discoveries come from new advancements. While we may be a generation attached to our phones and addicted to the Internet, we have the ability to learn and adapt, to inspire and be inspired.

Take Time To Unplug

While the world we live in has the potential to swallow us whole, we don’t have to let it. This connected generation has a lot of advantages, but we don’t have to always be connected.

One of the greatest dangers this world holds is the ability to desensitize, to take away our enjoyment of the mundane and to take the joy out the simple things. Don’t be so obsessed with what is going on with others that you forget to appreciate what is going on with you.

It may be cliché, but time has tested the theory that we must take a break to smell the roses -- or, in today’s day and age, to binge-watch Netflix and eat junk food.

Next time you power up your smartphone, iPad or laptop, remember what advantages you hold right at your fingertips. If we play our cards right, we can all survive at high speed.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It