Take out the earpiece if ur not using it.
It’s truly amazing that we can meet people who live in different parts of the world and develop bonofide friendships with them without ever having met them in person. It’s remarkable that we can know these people so much more intimately than we do our own neighbors.
It’s also pretty sad.
Our cell phones are our best friends. We’re never alone. We can walk into any bar with the confidence of knowing we have someone to talk to. That “someone” may be a girl or guy 10,000 miles away, but he or she is as real to us as any person standing in the bar.
I recently read an amazing article about neighborhoods. Peter Lovenheim, the author, decided to start having sleepovers at his neighbors’ houses in an effort to get to know them better. Peter is not 7 years old. He’s 51. He explains:
“One night, a neighbor shot and killed his wife and then himself; their two middle-school-age children ran screaming into the night. Though the couple had lived on our street for seven years, my wife and I hardly knew them.”
“Within weeks, the children had moved with their grandparents to another part of town. The only indication that anything had changed was the “For Sale” sign on the lawn.”
“A family had vanished, yet the impact on our neighborhood was slight. How could that be? Did I live in a community or just in a house on a street surrounded by people whose lives were entirely separate?”
Peter decided to do sleepovers. I think that’s a little bit unrealistic for most of us. But perhaps we can do things to make ourselves more friendly and approachable?
May I suggest you remove your bluetooth headset when you’re not using it? I’m not even talking about the kid who walks through the airport with his earbuds in, tuned out to the world. At least he’s listening to music. Your earpiece says “I’m busy. Do not disturb me.” Whether you realize it or not, that’s the message it gives off.
Okay, this one is for me: What if we can put our blackberries away for a few minutes? Okay, that’s impossible. How about this as a suggestion for how to get there: Put the blackberries down when we’re with our friends.
Okay, how about this one then. From now on, when your blackberry chimes telling you there’s an email, DON’T immediately grab for it. Count to 10 and then get it.
If you work backwards from the suggestions I just gave you will be successful in this endeavor.
I know. Because a year ago I was a complete blackberry addict and could tune out the world for hours on end. Not anymore. That’s how I know that change is possible. (That and Barak Obama of course).
I have made a tremendous effort to NOTICE the people around me more than the people in my blackberry. I’m trying to live in the moment and I believe you can too.
Get out and say hello to the world you live in.
-Evan Lowenstein
ps. In complete disclosure I must confess that I checked my blackberry 5 times during the writing of this post. I’m not perfect.
