Going too fast

I've noticed a sort of trend in recent times: people trying to get things done in as litle time as possible. Become fluent in Japanese in 3 months! Learn guitar in 2 weeks! Learn to draw like THIS in a year! And of course, don't forget to buy my course on Gumroad, and use my code for 10% discount!

It's doesn't only manifest in such obvious ways, there's also the general prevailing notion that being more productive is de facto better. For example, YouTubers will try to put out at least one video every week, because they believe "the algorithm" will favor them that way, even though there's no hard evidence to suggest that; music artists will try to put out singles to Spotify as often as possible, even when they're not inspired; viewers will skip videos and listeners will skip songs if they're not hooked within the first 10 seconds; then there's the whole armchair discourse around neuroplasticity and how some people frame it as humans becoming unable to learn anything new past their 30s (so you better hurry up and learn now!).

We live in the age of impatience. Why do people tend to accelerate over time? I have a couple of ideas as to why. Maybe with technological advancement comes the realization of our potential, and subconsciously we want to avoid wasting that potential, so we try to do as much as we can to fulfill it. Or maybe we're becoming more aware of our mortality as a species, and the more things we experience, the closer we feel to immortality. Immortality, in essence, boils down to being able to experience all that this universe has to offer.

So, is this way of thinking right or wrong? I can't be the judge of that, but I can offer a few examples where people have been hurt by following this way of thought. A mastering engineer on YouTube will tell his viewers that they can't be considered professional mastering engineers unless they're able to finish masters quickly; those who heed his words will start to feel insecure and doubt their own abilities. A gamer on an online forum will brag about how he was able to complete a game in better-than-average time, and he's better than you because the timer said so; those who heed his words will feel like they're taking too long to finish the game, and their hobby will turn into a chore, their cheerfulness into a need to prove themselves. An illustrator will see other illustrators finish their pieces in under 3 hours, and will feel inadequate for taking several days to finish one.

If you feel like you're going too slow, don't worry. Take a month off, take a year off, and take your mind off what you "should" be doing, it'll do you good. You don't need to set productivity goals in your personal life, keep that mentality within the workplace. The world isn't going anywhere.