Nobody has the time for that kind of thing anymore. Well, maybe we do today because its Valentine's Day and love is in the air. But we don't on a normal day.

The concept of spare time has taken on a whole new meaning. Spare time today is when we browse the mail, the facebook feed, the tweet stream, and engage on whatsapp.

In fact, things need to be really really interesting to hold our attention. Or it must require quick inputs from us. I have seen this in classes during Engineering, MBA, on exchange in a different continent, in meetings at work, at restaurants with friends. It even happens while watching a movie, a TV show, or even a football game. The moment the excitement level drops, there is a tendency to reach out for the phone.

It is amazing how powerful the prospect of finding something more interesting is. It is powerful enough to build billion dollar companies around. Even though that prospect is so remote it is equivalent to winning a lottery. But we tend to buy the ticket nevertheless.

This is just another lifestyle change in the history of human evolution, and it is something we have to adapt to and learn to make the most of. Marketers seem to be learning quickly enough and are introducing shiny new marketing toys like shop through tweets, customer service through tweets and real time marketing and native advertising and a bunch of other things. Its about time customers did as well.

As for smelling the roses, you can wait for another Valentine's Day.