I am about to wildly date myself.
I was just sitting here, and I decided to quickly message my niece. All I had to do was open another program on my computer; I just had to move between tiny windows.
For a moment I was transported back to the first time I ever got an email. I had spent the summer with this guy I really liked, but he was going back to university and I was starting university in a different city, and he said, “Make sure you get an email address.”
Say what now?
To GET that email address, I had to find and line up outside of the Technology Office, which was a single room in the basement of the library. I made my friend go even though she had (ha) no interest in having an email address.
We stepped to the front of the line, got our slips of paper, our quick lesson and printed instructions on how to log in to the system at school and (gasp) at home and then stepped back out into the world, not understanding the magnitude of the paradigm shift we had just made.
I sat at a desk in the library and sent the guy an email. “It’s me! I’m here!”
Later, my parents both watched over my shoulder as I logged in from home and sent another email. (They very quickly overtook me in the email department. Both were way ahead in the tech game for awhile.)
At the beginning, we were all a little dazzled by this new magic. For the first year my inbox was basically used to talk to that guy, the few friends who also had email, and to share ridiculous forwards like The Top Ten Dirtiest Lines from Star Wars. (Still funny.) By the time I graduated four years later, everyone had an email address and it was normal to do most things for school with email.
But what that girl didn’t know was how much this me would miss the richness of connection that happened in life before. I miss the telephone - the actual telephone, complete with long cable.
Remember when there were no interruptions? When you were out with friends and you were just out with THOSE friends?
I love technology so much. I love messaging my nieces and my family, and connecting with friends from now and from years ago. I love my work with people over the web. AND I miss before…
Yes, it can be a yes/and as long as the and has some action with it. Sitting with nostalgia doesn’t sort out the longing for connection.
It’s so easy to moan - especially us GenX’rs and those Boomers - about life before vs life now. But you know what I realized today as I sat with some friends and we laughed about life? We can moan or we can choose to do something different. I choose whether I pick up the phone instead of being present. I choose whether I engage fully in what I am doing or allow myself to be seduced by notifications. I choose whether to use this power for good or to let myself get lost in it.
I choose deeper, richer connection with the person, the world, the work, or the words in front of me whether they are on the computer or in ‘real life’. In every single interaction, I have the power to choose the quality of my own attention.
In all things, we hold the power if we just remember to choose.
Life CAN be a really delicious yes/and if we decide it is.
I hope you choose connection today.
I hope you choose present love.
Sending you so much of it.
Are you ready for some real conversation and deep attention on what you want to expand/shift/give life to? Are you ready for depth and width and creation and nothing-to-fix, just take your seat and let's do this-ness?
Then let's collaborate. « click there.
xo
I was reminded of this last night as I reconnected with a high school friend. The richness of our discussion was just what this lonely soul needed. 🙋♀️
This is why connection is central to my work, it's what makes me tick! I love meeting friends and putting my phone AWAY until I get home, no distraction feels so much better. Also our brains sometimes need to get a little bored...