January Challenge…One Ringie Dingie
When I was a teen, the big “thing” was talking on the phone with your friends. We'd spend what seemed like hours to our parents talking to our good friend we'd just spent the day with in school. The smartphone had not been invented so it was a regular rotary phone. Anyone trying to call our home would get the "busy signal." (Call waiting didn't appear until I was in college.)
My first big job was staffing offices. I was on the phone all day, often juggling 2 calls. At times, I had half an hour or more on the phone after I was home.
After years of feeling as if I had a phone growing out of my ear, I wanted to spend as little time as I had t0 talking on the phone. Want to chat? Let's meet for lunch or coffee!
Enter texting! I discovered the benefits of texting after a friend started texting me. We used to pick up the phone and call each other. However, when her daughters became involved with after school activities, texting was easier than trying to talk over the noise of children and parents shouting!
~Texting is time-efficient when all you need is a “yes” or “no”
~It is also a pre-communication of the desire to communicate…
Text: Are you free to talk?
However...
~Texting has become a substitute for P2P conversations.
~Texting has cost some Millennials and the following generations the ability to have extemporaneous conversations.
Having a conversation with someone, where there is an immediate back and forth of thoughts is still something I enjoy. You hear their voice and more importantly, you hear inflections and their tone of voice. It’s not quite as good as a face to face conversation but better than no conversation at all.
After I joined ActiveRain, I’d heard of the coveted call from Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400 . I will never forget my first call from her! I felt like Sally Field when she won an Oscar…”You like me, you really like me.” (ok...that's a bit exaggerated)
Over the years, I’ve been lucky and had calls not just from Margaret but Lenn Harley, Anna "Banana" Kruchten , Liz and Bill Spear , Sharon Tara , and many many more.
Jeff Dowler, CRS called me once and even though we’d “known” each other for years thanks to the platform, we’d never spoken except for our Zoom calls.
What I hope and will do this year is to return to making phone calls and having a conversation. It can be 5 minutes or 15. It doesn’t matter but it’s a connection.
And it’s not just my ActiveRain friends but people I know. There’s a friend Larry and I met in Delray Beach. We didn’t know each other long but we knew it would have been a fun friendship. I admire him because every few months he calls just to say “hello” or wish us a Merry Christmas.
While I may not make a call per day, I’m going to start with one per week. Not very industrious, I know, but baby steps.
This is my third entry in the January Challenge 2025- Planning for Success hosted by Leanne Smith and Will Hamm.
Comments(25)