Cell phones make us rude to our friends and family in ways most people don’t even think about. The phone becomes more important than whoever you are with.
- You are sitting in a restaurant with someone or maybe a group of folks. Everyone took time out of their busy schedules to meet at this restaurant to spend time together. A cell phone rings. And gets answered. That person is telling everyone at the table that whoever is on the phone is MORE IMPORTANT than whoever they are with at the restaurant. 99% of all calls could have waited until after the gathering. Be with the people you are with. Be in the moment. If you’ve made plans with people, then those people should have your full attention.
- You are in a car with other people. A cell phone rings. And gets answered. I see this in my rearview mirror all the time, and it makes me very sad. There’s a person in the car behind me, gabbing on the phone, while another person is staring out the window, very alone and very ignored. Talk to the people in the car with you. They are with you in the moment, sharing this moment of life with you. What an opportunity to actually talk to them!
- You drive 6 hours to spend a few days with friends or family. You’ve taken time off of work, spent gobs of money on gas, driven all these hours to get there, and what do they do? They answer their cell phone. You’ve driven all that way to be with them, and they are busy on their cell phone, ignoring you. How rude is that? What’s my incentive for driving to see you, when you are simply going to ignore me every time your cell phone rings?
- You’ve gone to a friend’s house to spend the evening hanging out. Back in the day this used to be such a precious event. It was important to people. But what happens now? You guessed it. A cell phone rings…
Be with the people you are with. Live in the moment. Be respectful to your friends and family and show them that they are important to you. Turn the cell phone OFF.
Jimbo could have taken a shopping list to the store with him. He doesn’t need you to be his list on the phone. Janie is perfectly capable of finding the can of soup in the cupboard. You can reschedule with Peggy Lee when you get home or when your guests leave. None of these things are urgent. None of these things should be more important than the people you are with right now.
The moral of the story is: Love the one you’re with!
If you want to read about life before cell phones, Yankee Go Home takes you there. It’s a mostly true story of a Yankee in the South, set in the early 1980s.
