"Lose not a minute" is the motto of the age. We are always making haste. Multitasking isn't an option, it's a way of life. Hyperactivity is the norm. . . . Here's the problem. When life becomes an Olympic endurance event ("the Everydayathon"), when the stopwatch is always ticking, when are we supposed to have fun? When will there be time to be human? As Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, professor of leisure studies, so aptly put it, "Having to go so fast to keep up, we miss stuff — our existence is truncated. Some things simply cannot be done going full speed: love, sex, conversation, food, family, friends, nature. In the whirl, we are less capable of appreciation, enjoyment, sustained concentration, sorrow, memory."

Al Gini, The Importance of Being Lazy