From Long Days to Quick Moments – How Our World Has Changed
The world we live in today moves faster than ever. Communication is immediate—text, email, social media, all available in seconds. We order from Amazon or Walmart and have items on our doorstep the same day. Our daily lives are shaped by instant results, and in many ways, that speed has changed how we experience life.
Not too long ago, life unfolded in longer stretches. Family time meant more than just brief check-ins between busy schedules; it meant hours, sometimes days, together without interruption. Now, many of our interactions are broken into short, episodic moments—quick conversations, quick meals, quick visits—often shared while we’re also engaging with a screen.
It’s not unusual to see a family at a restaurant with each person scrolling on their own phone. They are physically together but mentally scattered, each in our own digital world.
When I think about my favorite family memories, none of them are “episodic.” They’re long-form experiences that stretched over hours and days—times when we were fully present with each other. This is why we still eat dinner every night as a family, no TV, phones, internet, etc. And the same applies in those limited moments when we eat out.
One of the clearest examples for me is our family road trips to Colorado in our old, paneled station wagon. We didn’t have streaming entertainment or smartphones to pass the time. Instead, we had conversation, car games, and the occasional sibling squabble. More importantly, we had shared music—singing songs together, sometimes loudly and off-key, but always joyfully. Those long stretches of highway created space for laughter, connection, and a rhythm that let us simply be together.
Another memory is playing golf as a family. I think about those late Sunday afternoons, on many weekends but especially after the festivities of Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and other weekend holidays. It wasn’t about the score, even though we were competitive. It was about Mom and Dad in a cart, with my sister, 11-years my junior, while my middle sister (4 years younger) and I walked, talking between shots, encouraging each other, and sharing the small victories. The time commitment was built-in—you couldn’t “speed up” the round—and that gave us room to connect without distraction. Looking back, the most valuable part of those experiences wasn’t the activity itself, but the uninterrupted time spent together.
Today’s pace makes that kind of sustained togetherness harder to come by. We’ve replaced many of our long-term shared experiences with quick, isolated moments. Task to be done. Quick “bursts” of communication through our cell phones. And while technology has made our lives more efficient, it has also made it easier to be “alone together,” with each person living their own mini-episode instead of participating in a collective story.
I’m not suggesting we abandon modern convenience. Few of us want to go back to the days of waiting weeks for a letter or spending an entire Saturday hunting down an item at multiple stores. But I do believe we can be more intentional about building long-form moments into our lives. That might mean committing to a family game night without devices, taking a weekend trip where the goal is simply to spend time together, or even just having a meal where the phones stay in another room.
The truth is, the best memories aren’t usually the fast ones. They’re the ones that stretch out over time, where connection happens naturally, and where everyone is fully present. If we can carve out more of those moments, we might just find that life feels a little less episodic—and a lot more meaningful.
