disturbing, but not surprising

Yesterday I read a disturbing article in the News & Observer about adults taking (abusing) ADHD medicine for the sole purpose of being able to work more/sleep less. For example, people working in the corporate world, Wall Street is specifically mentioned, do not "have time" to sleep more than four hours a night. Some of them get less. The article also high lights that this is a common practice in colleges around exam time and when many projects are due.

I attended a Christian college. And yet, there were several students in the girls dorm that would buy caffeine pills or stimulants to help them focus when they "needed" to pull an all-nighter. I had a roommate that used them so much her sleeping habits were altered, forcing her to use sleeping pills, which opened up a whole new can of worms.

So here's one thing that baffled me after reading the article. If places of higher education are full of people who are not disciplining themselves to maintain a manageable schedule, to say no, and to be realistic, and have been for years, then why is everyone so surprised and shocked and concerned that the upper echelons of working society are now continuing the same practice they employed in college/their formative adult years?

When I visited third world countries and lived in China, I was often struck at how they perceived Americans as "controlling" or "arrogant".  I asked some of my students once exactly what they meant by that, and they responded with time change as an example. Instead of getting up earlier and staying in sync with nature's time clock, we change our clock and schedules to keep the sunlight and our routines on the same path. They saw that as an American attempt to control nature. I as totally blown away by such a thought process, but since being back in the states, I do observe this "I'm in control attitude" when I never had before my time overseas. And I think this news article is yet another example of that. Instead of admitting that we are human, which means our bodies are require rest and times to recharge, we instead seek ways to give ourselves more energy to become more invincible, all-powerful, ever alert and cognisant, never sleeping, never slumbering. In essence, like Lucifer, we're still striving to be like God.

It's sad that a nation that was once so powerful is now so prideful and unwilling to recognize the dangers of defying nature and natural processes in the name of "getting ahead" and "staying in the game". Days of reckoning do come, whether its an obese person realizing their body is no longer coping with the abuse heaped on it over the years, or a person who has drugged himself/herself to the point of exhaustion and their body shuts down or malfunctions from the neglect and abuse. Wealth without common sense will not remain wealth for long.