Live Your Life!

"Call home as soon as you get there.
Call home as soon as you get there.
Call home as soon as you get there.
Call home as soon as..."

I could repeat that to myself the entire ten minutes that it took to walk from my house to my best friend's house, but even then it didn't stop me from forgetting to actually do it. And typically it resulted in me getting grounded.

That was only a few decades ago. Before cell phones. When we all wore watches and relied on the street lights to tell us when we needed to be home. If I wanted to play with my friend, and my Mom was gabbing away on the phone, or the line was busy (remember that!?), I'd hop on my bike and ride to their house.

Our times were documented on my Mickey Mouse 110 camera. And even then we'd sometime wait years to get that film developed.

It's hard to believe those times are now "back in the day".

Almost a year ago, I had that moment in time where I realized that I'm joining an older generation. A generation who valued things differently. For me, it happened at a Counting Crows concert when I reached into my back pocket, turned on my iPhone, and started taking a video of my sister's favorite song to send it to her. Through the tiny glow of my screen, I saw hundreds of other people doing the exact same thing.

With a slight breeze off of Lake Michigan, and hundreds of concert-goers around me in the open amphitheater, I realized that most of us had settled for re-living a moment more than living IN it in the first place. We were more eager to record a moment in time through our tiny handheld devices than to watch it actually taking place in person.

It was like a knife-to-the-gut sort of feeling.

Now, I'm sure my Mom would have aged a bit slower had she had the instant access to me, via cell phone, that mothers have these days. I'm also sure I'd have looked good in all of my slumber party pictures, and that everyone would be certain, with instant reviewing access, to have their eyes open for group photos!

But maybe my awkward years would have been all the more challenging. Being a teenager is tough enough on its own. I can't imagine being one today, with everyone posting selfies of themselves that look like they could be on the cover of a magazine. Me and my friends were too busy swimming, and bike riding to worry too much about glamour shots and the judgments that come with them. It's rough enough for me to live up to it all in my 30s!

My heart just goes back to simpler times. When we could sit around a campfire in the backyard and just share life. We could talk for hours, or we could just stare into the fire without the continuous glow of our electronic devices.

Now I'm not saying that technology is evil. Truth be told, I love it. I love that I have a way, other than snail mail, to be caught up on the lives of my overseas, and out of state, friends. But are we sacrificing too much? Are we paying to attend concerts that we just end up watching through a small screen anyway? Are we losing out on building relationships with people because we're too consumed with taking the perfect picture of the moment and letting everyone know where we were when it happened?

I don't know.

I'll still take a picture to capture an instant in time. And I'm sure that I will still document an amazingly plated meal. But I'll also be sure to put down my phone to focus my attention to a friend.

Or to enjoy a really nice campfire as well.