Pathological Impatience

It’s interesting to sit in my little spot in the back of a local hangout and to see folks, who came in together and are sitting at the same table, barely acknowledging each other. Witnessing this false sense of having to be up to speed on everything via a cellphone. It’s actually a fantastic little laboratory. Anyway…….

This is what is playing through my head: We crave connection, yet we ignore it when it is sitting across the table from us because the updates and pictures and opinions just keep coming. We don’t sit and contemplate those opinions with others. Instead, we read the first and last paragraph and a few sentences in between.

We state we are tired of the online chatter, but we can’t pull away from the news feeds. Yet, while on the news feed, we are simply skimming the stories because we don’t have enough time to read them in their entirety.

We desire relationship but a simple swipe to the left means ‘no thank you’ based on a photo and a few written words. So, instead of going up to that individual who has caught your eye, you look them up on your dating app and base your decision with your phone in hand instead of walking over to them and having a face-to-face conversation.

One little piece of equipment has provided so much good. Yet that same object has helped create a world of pathologically impatient people (PIPs - Ooooooh. I like that acronym). Anyway, here’s a crazy thought. What if you took a day, just a single 24 hours, and did not IM or text. Instead, you had to actually call the individual. Here are two of many possibilities: That angry, judgmental, hurtful, unforgiving (the list goes on) text just doesn’t happen, and a person is spared pain. Or you delight someone by taking the time to share your thoughts, emotions, ideas using more than a few short sentences and an emoji or two.

So, what could your day look like if you tried this little experiment?