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They thought I died the day I stopped emailing
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They thought I died the day I stopped emailing
Written by Jennifer Doyle
Okay, I admit it. I’m addicted to my email. I try to go without it but it’s a habit. Why call on the phone or stop by to visit when you can just pop them an email? Sure I would love to chat with my Mom every night. But that would cut into my television viewing. So instead I send her an email. Catch up with the written word. Sure a lot of things are misinterpreted through email. You can’t raise an eyebrow or let out a forced laugh with email. But it’s the way so many of us communicate, so why fight it, right? Well I have been struggling for over a year now to cut down my consumption of email dependency. Yes, I was suffering from some small withdrawal symptoms. It was hard for me to make eye contact now that I was communicating with others directly. I wasn’t really used to that. Dialing the phone was using muscles that I hadn’t used in quite a while. There was some stiffness but eventually they became broken in. I was coming to the point where I was quite proud of myself for cutting down on my email use. Shutting it off for hours at a time. Not responding the next minute when I received an email. Even thinking through a response before emailing back! I was quite proud of these accomplishments and I knew that my family would be so proud of the new me. Only, they weren’t proud. They were concerned for my safety. Seems there was a day last week that I didn’t email anyone in my family. My Mom and Dad went to Massachusetts for the day to have a nice lunch with friends. So I didn’t email them. My sister works a long day on Wednesday and doesn’t get a chance to email me back until Thursday. So I didn’t email her. I only email my brother if I want to ride bikes with him or need him to help me move something heavy. So I didn’t email him. I think to myself, “wow, I really have this email habit kicked!” Only thing is, my family thought that I had run off with a Hell’s Angels gang. Seems like they were getting used to my emailing habits. On Thursday morning my cell phone was blaring at 7 a.m., my work voice mail had three messages on it. “Where are you???” My Mom was going to stay home from babysitting her youngest grandchild because she needed to find her youngest child! Luckily I answered my phone and assured my sister that I was okay. Sorry, thought I would do some work and turn the email off. She got on the phone chain and told everyone I was okay. My brother asked the question if someone talked to me every day. “No, but she emails us every day.” So now everyone has the list of anyone I have ever talked to or maybe visited. Just in case they need to get a hold of me. So if you ever get a call in the middle of the night from my family you can just tell them, “maybe the server is down.”
"Time is limited, so I better wake up each morning fresh, and know that I have just one chance to live this particular day right, and to string my days together into a life of action, and purpose."
- Lance Armstrong |
