It has been a long week at work. Breaking free to write for fun has not been easy, and despite many good things going on all around me, I still find myself having this deep down need to vent and share my heart.
So, what is up with email these days? I have some questions and concerns. First of all, most of my working life consists of it, and over all, I would say it is an effective method of communication about 50% of the time. I think back to life before email and wonder how we as a people were able to live successfully for so many years without it. The pace was much slower, waiting on letters in the mail and scheduling time to meet face to face and hash out our differences, dreams, plans and life events together. We also relied on the trusty ol' telephone, or "land line" as it is called today, and for the most part, we were okay with these methods. I am still quite okay with these methods - I love receiving personal letters or postcards, phone calls and in-person meetings - even a nice little "stop and chat" is welcome most of the time.
I remember when I received my first email account - I was a freshman in college and we were all given a school account. It was the coolest thing in the world to me. I wrote people constantly - I couldn't stop checking it and replying to friends and family. My friend had an AOL account set up in his room and we were constantly on it instant messaging people from all over - it was definitely a great waste of time and without a doubt provided both appropriate and inappropriate distractions from classes. Then, there came a time when one email account was not enough - I set up a free MSN hotmail account. Wow - amazing! The ability to access email anywhere in the world and not just from college! I couldn't get enough of it, even when I was far away, I felt close to those I cared about.
As time wore on, the email excitement has faded and I began losing touch with more and more friends. My address book remains quite full, but the actual consistent correspondence with those individuals is very minimal. Now, 10 years after I received my first email account, I have 5 different accounts, including my work email. I still enjoy sending and receiving email, but not nearly as much as when I was first introduced. And despite the fact that I am practically a professional email communicator at work, I still enjoy the practice of it in my free time. This last week of work though, I did not enjoy email because I probably spent easily 45 hours writing, reading and reading and writing some more email. And I can say with certainty that most people don't read email anymore. Students are constantly asking me questions that I just addressed specifically in an email. "Did you read the email?" I ask them. "Yeahh" They respond hesitantly. "Really? The whole thing?" Silence. I have tried multiple ways of getting the word out and never with a whole lot of success. With all the methods of "easy communication" out there - text messaging, instant messaging, cell phones, personal web pages, blogs - we are still failing miserably. I am tired of it. Perhaps we didn't have it so bad before, when it was more difficult, when it was slower. At least then I had low expectations and knew that everyone else was in the same boat.
We are reacting less and less to each other and our communication is falling off drastically (see "Blinker blog".) For instance, we all send each other Christmas cards and letters, but we're not really responding to each other after reading them are we? Of the two dozen or so that we received, we've talked to only a handful of them since then, and most likely, won't talk or correspond with most of them until next Christmas. What's up with that? I'm guilty - you're guilty - we're all falling way short here. I decided to join the ever increasingly popular "Email Christmas letter" bandwagon and sent our "Year in Review" out to at least 60 email addresses of friends and family. I fully expected to receive at least 45 email replies - and instead, I got around 10 - maybe. I don't even know if any of those non-repliers even read it, could open it, or whether I had the right address or not. Of the info we recapped and presented for the first time, I had shared via telephone with around 15 people - so what happened to the rest? Do they know what's going on with us? Do I know what's going on with them? Probably not. Maybe. Who knows? I fully intended to use these "easy" technological methods to be a better friend and consistent communicator. Not including my weekly blogs, I would give myself a C+. Perhaps I would be better at handwriting and sending letters the old fashioned way.
We're all really busy and we've all narrowed down who we're going to really stay in touch with on a consistent basis. We have these technological wonders around us that we can use to talk to each other easily and frequently, but we're not really using them. The meaning isn't what it used to be. It's nice to get a long email from someone you haven't talked to in awhile, but then, we let the connection eventually fade back into oblivion. Wow, how depressing is this? I do strive to take all this to heart and do what I can to change it. I want to call more friends and share a five minute chat as opposed to a 8k email. I want to send my loved ones more "snail mail" with the latest news and ponderings from my life. I will send email yes, but I refuse to rely soley on it from now on.
Ahh - much better. I hope these words are more inspiring than convicting. Yes, I feel convicted that I haven't been a better friend to most of you that read "Life-in-tents" on a consistent basis, and I hope that we can at least talk to each other through this blog and maybe even add in a few phone chats from time to time. Who knows, perhaps a face to face is in the near future for us. Either way - I do appreciate each and every one of you and am thankful to have the opportunity to write and give you the latest from my world.
Now, send me an email, or better yet, give me a call so I know you're out there!
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