Efficient or Impatient?

“Pomp, Pomp”, a sound which is usually heard from behind while I am sitting in my car waiting for the signal to turn green. This is pretty common in Karachi, the mass-operative city; though very rare in Islamabad, the so-called dead city. This is not the only noise which is disturbing; one can see many vehicles breaking signals; coming from wrong side of the road; and changing lanes quite drastically.

One can easily say that this trend of traffic is due to the fact that people don’t have enough time and they value it too much that they can even risk their own lives for it. But, quite interestingly the trend is almost 180 degrees when you enter a shop, office, governmental department or any other operational place where time actually matters. There, one can clearly observe wastage of time in gossiping, slowness of activity and simply sleeping; though these are not limited as you can find lots of other time-wasting activities and discussions going on which are simply useless and which is not what our country needs.

Most commonly discussed areas are cricket, politics and religion; which can be termed as healthy discussions if you see it from a higher level. But, my experience after being parts of such discussions (for the sake of knowledge) , was disappointing as I found these as just blames and complaints to those who are simply not hearing us. In addition, nothing can be done about it, as opposed to the workplace where one has some authority and can do something constructive.

Some people might believe that these are past-times for people and can be treated equivalent to sports or any other leisure activity; as for some people things like gossiping are recreational. To some extent, this can be agreed upon, but not wholly as people sacrifice their work for the sake of such activities whereas they’re not ready to sacrifice their time for the sake of safety for travelers.

What good is the impatience normally taken as efficiency which saves you just 2 minutes with lots of risk and tension; as compared to the hours of time-wastage coming under inefficiency but assumed as pride by many?

Comments are welcome related to the usage of semicolon