Don’t Answer Your Phone!

Don’t answer your phone — if you don’t want to! There are few things more annoying than someone who answers their phone, and yet is too busy to talk (even for a minute). It’s simultaneous wrongdoing against yourself, and the caller. If you value this person enough to answer, then you ought to value him or her enough to speak. If you don’t value the person — or if it’s simply not a good time — then don’t answer. Don’t foster a fraud, and don’t waste your own time, either. If you’re too busy to talk, you really have no business answering the phone, anyway. “Too busy” to talk means that what you’re otherwise doing, right now, is a higher priority than talking to anyone on the phone. Try to stick with your priorities by exhibiting them in practice. The same applies to other kinds of technological interruptions, be they texts, emails, or what have you. Modern technology — that wonderful combination of science and capitalism that still exists in some of our society — has made access to one another unprecedented. This forces the onus of responsibility on each and every one of us to allow only as much access as we are able and willing to grant to others. We often hear how technology and progress “make life more stressful.” No, that’s not it. Technology and progress make life easier and easier. However, dumb or stupid ideas will always get in the way of enjoying that technology. When there was only one way to get in touch with you, it was still a dumb idea to give people time you don’t have, or don’t want to give them. Now that there are 5 or 25 ways to get in touch with you, always instantaneously, it’s still a dumb idea to give people time you don’t have, or don’t want to give them. Technology changes, but good ideas and stupid ideas are still the same as before.