“There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.” Mahatma Gandhi
When I was a child I remember going to a Native American Pow wow with my family. We were living near Omaha Nebraska at the time. We were there with friends and enjoyed a fun day of food and games. The pow wow was scheduled to start at a certain time in the early evening. As a child, I can remember looking forward to the event and of course, kept asking my parents if it was time for it to start yet! My parents told me the time it was scheduled to start and I counted down the minutes. The time came and went and still the pow wow hadn't started. Hours went by and finally the pow wow started - It was an amazing experience that just started a lot later than we had thought. My dad spoke to someone after and was told that start times were more suggestions than reality. They started when they started even if it was hours later than posted.
Have you ever heard of monochronic and polychronic? Apparently, most cultures can be placed into one of these categories.
A monochronic culture is very focused on timekeeping, calendars, and doing things in order. You could use the familiar phrase 'time is money' and you would be spot on. Countries that are considered monochronic would be the United States, Canada, Northern, and Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia. Time is something tangible that can be wasted or lost.
A polychronic culture doesn't focus so much on time as a commodity. I get the impression that they feel like time works for them not the other way around. So they are a lot more flexible. They don't see interruptions to their routines as a bad thing. Their main concern is their relationships with their family and the people they work with.
So how does this affect us? In the world, we live in with all the technology we can communicate and do business with people all over the world.
To make this work we need to learn to appreciate each other and find a balance in how we live. We can all learn from each other. I think there is a need to be on time, to be punctual and reliable. We all have deadlines we need to meet. When we are in school we have assignment deadlines, when we work we need to arrive promptly and be reliable because someone is paying us to do something at a particular time.
However, there are also times in our lives when we need to slow down. When our kids come and sit on the bed, or seem to have something on their minds. When we are feeling ill and need to rest. When we are prompted to take a few minutes to call a friend or send them a card or email.
I think balance and understanding can go a long way in dealing with the cultural differences we come across in life.
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Thanks for highlighting balance in your post. Any virtue in excess could be harmful. Sometimes we need to change the schedule to help the need or comfort our family. However, let's not forget that we have technology and can communicate that the plans changed for some reason.
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