Why Modern Life Has Made us Forget ‘How to Live’?

• Have we truly become faster, or have we simply forgotten how to pause?
• In a world where technology has compressed years into minutes and effort into swipes, why do we still whisper the same excuse — "I have no time"?
• If everything has become easier, why does peace feel harder than ever?
• If distances have vanished, why do hearts feel farther apart?

We live in an age of unimaginable convenience. The 12-hour journey has shrunk to four. Letters that once crossed continents in weeks now ping across the globe in seconds. A family of twelve may now be just two, yet the refrain remains unchanged: no time. It’s not that time has become scarce. We have simply lost the courage to use it meaningfully.

In the pursuit of speed, we have sacrificed presence. We multitask through conversations, scroll during family dinners, and steal glances at our phones even while driving. We complete bank transactions in a click, health checkups in an hour, groceries with a swipe — and still, we insist that we are out of time.

A Generation Running on Empty

This generation has more comfort, more opportunities, and more access than any before it. And yet, never have we felt more restless, more distracted, or more lost. The irony is tragic. With a world of entertainment at our fingertips, we rarely have time for introspection. With instant messaging, we’ve lost the art of meaningful conversation. With 24x7 connectivity, we are lonelier than ever before.

We say we don’t have time to call our parents, but we can binge a Netflix series over a weekend. We scroll endlessly through Instagram reels but can’t find fifteen minutes for a morning walk. We debate politics on Twitter but haven’t spoken to our childhood friend in years. Is it truly the lack of time — or a crisis of priority?

The Mirage of Motion

Technology was meant to make life easier. Instead, it made it busier. Elevators, video calls, mobile banking, food delivery, online education — all designed to save time. But what did we do with that saved time? We filled it with anxiety, deadlines, notifications, and distractions. We didn’t create space for silence. We just made more noise.

The tragedy is not that we are running. The tragedy is that we are running in circles. We are so busy trying to catch up with life that we never question where we are heading. Is productivity really progressive if it robs us of presence?

When Time Slips Away

And then one day, without warning, time will run out. It will not ask for permission. It will not give a final reminder. It will simply vanish. And in that moment, we will look back — not at our email inboxes or our digital to-do lists — but at the memories we never made, the words we never said, the people we never loved fully, and the self we never knew.

We will realize that we had time — always did — but we chose not to claim it. We lived on borrowed hours, chasing borrowed goals, forgetting that life is not measured in deadlines, but in depth.

A Call to Reclaim Time

So today, you need to pause for a moment and ask yourself:

• Do I truly lack time, or have I just surrendered it to the noise?
• Can I not spare five minutes to sit in silence, call an old friend, or take a walk without my phone?
• Can I rewrite the narrative from "no time" to "I choose time"?

Because time is not a myth. It is a mirror. It reflects what we value, what we fear, and what we are becoming.

Final Thoughts

• Will you continue to live as a prisoner of the clock, or will you finally take charge of your time?
• When the end comes, will you regret the things you did — or the moments you never made time for?
• Will you realize too late that the words “no time” were never true — just a habit we were too afraid to break?
• Or will you reclaim your hours today, and finally begin to live the life you always postponed?

Because in the end, time is not lost. It is only abandoned.

Image (c) istock.com