But how much of it is real? The vast majority of people I know who are always rushing around spend an awful lot of time complaining about being busy while actually accomplishing little, yet still manage to spend 3 hours in front of the TV every night.

They wind themselves up and get stressed out rushing here and rushing there -- but don't get there any faster than you do if you aren't worried about it. They'll complain they don't have time to eat right, but will spend 30 minutes getting in the car and driving to a fast food restaurant for a greasy hamburger -- when you can cook an awful lot of healthy meals in less time than that.

We're constantly being told how busy we are and how fast-paced life is now. Speed is marketted to us in drive-thru windows and "fast" food and "fast" relief (of heartburn caused by fast food) and home delivery and "instant" messaging. Our machines have gotten faster, so like John Henry we feel we have to keep up with them.

I can't say that I think we as humans get much more done in the modern era than we did 10 or 20 or 100 years ago, but we've developed this attitude about it. And we just spend a lot more time worrying about it.