I’m a very strange bird. I’m fifty-five years old, which automatically puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage in many ways. You know what I mean, I don’t need to list all my shortcomings. However, there are a few advantages to having lived so long. It’s called experience.
Hang with me for just a couple minutes and then share with me your thoughts. I believe it would be unanimously agreed upon that you should love the one you’re with. Agreed? That would be pretty crazy to be with someone, and your thoughts and heart were elsewhere. Quite honestly that could even be considered sick. Pretend just for a second that you are walking on the beach with that special person, hearing the waves and watching that once in a lifetime sunset, but your thoughts are elsewhere. My heart is breaking for your loved one. I’m not talking about infidelity; I just mean you are not entirely present in the conversation. You are thinking, I would never do that, that’s terrible. The truth is, we are doing it every single day, and we are killing our intimate relationships.
A couple of weeks ago Robin and I took our thirteen-year-old granddaughter to dinner. We took her to one of her favorite restaurants, Genghis Grill. That place is as unhealthy as it gets, I love it :-)
We were laughing and joking about nonsense things and getting caught up on her final grades in school, just sharing life. The food was taking a little longer than normal, and I was becoming a little restless, not bad, I was just hungry. As I was looking around for our waitress I began to notice something that bothered me; no one was talking. Two ladies were sitting right next to us that were probably in their mid-thirties, both on their iPhone. Now, I started intentionally taking an inventory of the restaurant and realized that seventy-five percent of the people were on their devices. Young couples on date night, and seasoned families with children were all preoccupied with something other than each other. It dawned on me that we don’t love the one we're with. It’s a little bit like guys with a television remote control; they are not interested in what’s on, they're interested in what they might be missing so we are feverishly scanning. When we realize that nothing better was on, we missed the main event, our present conversation.
We say that the one we are with is important when actually our actions are screaming the opposite.
We treat our families like second-class citizens as we take selfies and post to the world about what an awesome time we are having. Hey, I’m raising my hand on this also, guilty as charged, none of us are without blame. Recently Robin and I were celebrating an event, and I grabbed my camera for a photo, thinking this would be an excellent post at some point. I destroyed the moment, seriously, I did. Robin brought up a very good point, “can’t some things be just for us?” I was embarrassed needless to say and quickly apologized.
Back to Genghis Grill for a minute. I believe the reason I was bothered and even a little sad was that we could never recoup missed conversations. The emails will be there later, and all of our online friends didn’t know we were there.
So, the loser ultimately was everyone at the dinner table.
Posting events are okay, at the proper time for the right reason. Let some things be unique just for the attendees and don’t miss the moment trying to grab a picture. The best advice that I could give you is to love the one you're with.
Live on purpose,
Aaron Walker
