First time playing Skyrim, why does every single side quest turn into a two hour adventure across all of Skyrim

The people of the stone place asked me to go get the goddess of love statue back and the Jarl dude asked clear out the area of bad people.

Okay sounds good. A quick in and out bounty quest.

WHY THE FUCK AM I FIGHTING A CAVE FULL OF WITCHES????

I bet the graybeards are wondering where the fuck I am and when I am bringing their cup back.

I thought it would be easy to clear up some of my "misc task" and then go back to the main story line.

The stormclocks are being racist towards me for being an Elf. The Imperials sound like douchebags. I don't know which side to pick and frankly the whole civil war is on the back burner right now because everyone and their mother is asking for things and I am hiking across Skyrim and back.

Here is a marvelous idea, why don't you deal with your own town criminals and pick your own Jazbay. Jesus no wonder Skyrim is stuck in the medieval era, nobody gets off their ass and does anything. Apparently "Dragonborn" is just a fancy title for errand boy.

I kid. I genuinely love this game even though "The Chosen One" has me running around in circles. I really like the open world and I can just fuck off in any direction I want and have so many options on which type of hero I want to be.