Aging in an Instant World

I remember when waiting was just part of life.

If you wanted to know what was happening in the world, you waited for the evening news. If you ordered something from a catalog, you mailed in the order form and then waited several weeks for it to arrive. If you called someone and they weren’t home, you simply called again later.

And photographs? We took 24 pictures, dropped the film off at the drugstore, and waited a week to discover that someone had their eyes closed in half of them.

Somehow, we survived.

Now we live in a world where waiting three seconds for a webpage to load feels mildly unreasonable.

We can order groceries without leaving the house, have packages delivered the same day, watch an entire television series without waiting a week between episodes, and ask our phones practically anything that pops into our heads.

I’m not complaining. I happen to like quite a few of these conveniences.

But sometimes I wonder if living in an instant world has quietly convinced us that we should be instant, too.

Instant answers.

Instant results.

Instant improvement.

Instant healing.

Instant purpose.

And aging has a way of reminding us that life simply doesn’t work that way.

We Come From a World That Knew How to Wait

Women our age have lived through an extraordinary amount of change.

We remember life before cell phones and the internet. Most of us remember party lines, encyclopedias, handwritten letters and getting up to change the television channel.

We also remember when nobody expected you to be reachable every minute of the day.

There was space built into ordinary life.

You waited in line without looking at a screen. You sat on the porch. You talked to the person beside you. You stared out the car window on a long trip instead of filling every quiet moment with entertainment.

We were bored sometimes.

And apparently, boredom didn’t kill us either.

But somewhere along the way, waiting became something to eliminate.

Technology became faster, communication became faster, shopping became faster, and gradually we began expecting life itself to move at the same speed.

Then we got older.

And our bodies didn’t receive the memo.

My Body Has Its Own Schedule

One way age humbles us is discovering that your mind can still make plans your body has absolutely no intention of honoring.

I can wake up with a perfectly reasonable list of things I’d like to accomplish.

My body occasionally looks at that list and says, “That’s adorable.”

Things take longer now.

Sometimes I need to rest.

Sometimes I start something today and finish it tomorrow.

Sometimes I have the energy for the thing I planned, and sometimes I simply don’t.

There was a time when I probably would have considered that unproductive.

I’m learning to call it being human.

That’s not always easy in a culture that celebrates efficiency.

We measure our days by how much we accomplished. We praise people who are constantly busy. Even retirement somehow became something we’re supposed to optimize.

Take a class. Start a business. Travel. Volunteer. Exercise. Declutter your entire house. Learn pickleball.

Preferably before lunch.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing any of those things.

But there is also nothing wrong with sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee.

Maybe Slower Isn’t Worse

For most of my life, I associated slowing down with losing something.

Less energy.

Less strength.

Less independence.

Less time.

And yes, aging does involve loss. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make us more positive. It just makes us dishonest.

But slowing down has also given me something I didn’t expect.

I notice more.

I notice how peaceful the house feels early in the morning.

I notice the first tomato ripening in the garden.

I notice when someone needs encouragement.

I notice how quickly a season passes when I’m not paying attention.

And perhaps most importantly, I’m beginning to notice the difference between what is urgent and what actually matters.

Those two things are rarely the same.

The world is very good at manufacturing urgency.

God doesn’t seem nearly as impressed by it.

God Has Never Been in Much of a Hurry

One thing that strikes me when I read Scripture is how much waiting there is.

Abraham waited for the promised son.

Joseph waited through years of circumstances he certainly didn’t choose.

Moses spent forty years in the wilderness before God called him to lead Israel.

David was anointed king long before he actually became king.

Even Jesus spent thirty years in relative obscurity before beginning His public ministry.

Apparently, God is comfortable with slow.

We are the ones who struggle with it.

We pray and want an answer.

We hurt and want healing.

We feel uncertain and want direction.

And preferably we’d like all three by Tuesday.

But much of the Christian life happens in the space between the prayer and the answer.

That’s where trust grows.

That’s where patience grows.

That’s where we learn whether we believe God is still working when we cannot see evidence of it.

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” — Psalm 27:14

Waiting isn’t wasted time when God is in it.

I’m still learning that.

We Don’t Have to Keep Up With Everything

There is another kind of freedom that comes with getting older.

We can stop trying to keep up.

We don’t have to know every trend.

We don’t have to use every new app.

We don’t have to answer every message immediately.

We don’t have to have an opinion about everything happening on the internet.

And we certainly don’t have to organize our lives around what an algorithm thinks deserves our attention today.

The world will keep moving quickly.

That’s what the world does.

But we get to decide how much of that hurry we allow into our own lives.

There is something deeply peaceful about realizing that not everything requires our attention.

Some things can wait.

Some things can be ignored completely.

And some things deserve to be done slowly.

Prayer deserves to be slow.

Friendship deserves to be slow.

A conversation with someone you love deserves to be slow.

Watching the sun come up deserves to be slow.

So does becoming the woman God is still shaping you to be.

We’re Still Becoming

I think that’s one of the things I want women our age to remember most.

We are still becoming.

Sixty doesn’t finish us.

Neither does seventy or eighty.

God doesn’t look at us and see women whose useful years are behind them.

There is still wisdom to gain.

There are still people to love.

There are still prayers to pray.

There are still things to learn and things to create and things to laugh about.

There are still parts of ourselves God may be asking us to release—and parts He may finally be giving us permission to discover.

But none of that has to happen instantly.

Maybe this season isn’t about becoming more efficient.

Maybe it isn’t about squeezing as much productivity as possible out of the years we have left.

Maybe it’s about becoming more present in them.

More willing to notice.

More willing to listen.

More willing to rest.

More willing to trust that a slower pace does not make our lives less valuable.

The world may keep telling us to hurry.

God keeps reminding us that there is a season for everything.

And perhaps one of the gifts of getting older is finally understanding that we don’t have to rush through ours.

So if things take you a little longer these days, give yourself grace.

Pour the coffee.

Sit on the porch.

Finish it tomorrow.

The instant world will still be there when you’re ready.

And chances are, whatever seemed so urgent will still be there too.