Straight To Voicemail

Today, call someone you’ve been thinking about; and if someone you haven’t heard from in a while calls you, try to answer or at least return the call in a timely matter. One day you will need to TALK to someone.

image via BeFunky
Before mobile phones

 

People do not “call” people anymore. As parents, life gets busy and hard, but, sometimes there is comfort in knowing that somebody outside of the confines of your home is thinking about you.

When was the last time you picked up your phone to call someone? Oh yeah… sure, we can text a “how r u”. But, it is different when you ask that question, and the person on the other end replies with “fine” but they don’t sound fine. You can always hear stress, or hurt, or pain within a person’s voice, which doesn’t translate well into texting.

It seems busy-ness has made us all self absorbed. Nobody talks anymore. We may not be able to chat on the phone for an hour but calling to hear someone’s voice is a priceless part of humanity that is wasting away.

On the other end of this, I’ve called to check on people, and they don’t answer their phone. They’ll infamously send me straight to voicemail, and will never return my call. I may get a stray text weeks later but by then the sentiment is gone.

We should check on each other. You never know what a phone call could interrupt. You might be the right person at the right time to call someone who needs help at that moment.

The strongest and most successful people struggle with loneliness. Especially in today’s world. Social media is awesome but it can never replace the flesh of a person or the sound of their voice. My daughter wants to Vlog. That is cool, but still not organic enough to catch a person in a priceless moment.

We’ve lost something here. I can talk to so many people online, but then I get in front of someone physically and I do not know what to say, or I find myself stumbling over the right words.

For many years my husband and I spoke baby and toddler talk. Now, I feel at a point where I don’t know what anything means anymore. It was never this difficult to communicate before. Even e-mail etiquette is confusing.

Sometimes a voice makes a difference with tone and inflection. You can read words like no, yes and phrases like I don’t care one way but hear them in a totally different way. I am usually very straight to the point via black and white font, such as text or e-mail, so I tend to get misunderstood very often. I don’t like to “sugar coat”, but the sincerity is there and unheard unless we are speaking, verbally.

Call someone today, even if it is just to say hey!