Namaste!
I was at the computer breathing life into this new website I’m building when my cell phone rang. It was my mom, (who I’m convinced is the living Buddha.) As we were catching up, my landline phone rang. I was trying to focus on the conversation with mom, but found my mind drifting to the message being left.
As that person was talking to my answering machine, I could hear the call-waiting beep of my cell. I’m trying to ignore this and hear my mom when, this is great… She says: “Oh, I have another call coming in, I’ll talk with you later.” We hung up.
I find myself laughing, but feeling a bit overwhelmed. Two messages to check, a boatload of email, and I didn’t get to discuss what I needed to with mom.
When/how did some unknown caller become more important than the person you are currently with? I’ve long-ago asked Verizon to shut off my call waiting and they said they cannot.
We’ve become so fast, so adept at multi-tasking, even though many studies have shown that it leads to lower productivity, stress, and overwhelm. I’m going to develop a workshop for the fall and call it “The Lost Art of Single-tasking.”
When did this become something we need to practice? Do you wonder how it already got to be mid-May? Join me in slowing down, we can stretch time, doing less, enjoying more.
For the record, if you call me, I promise to never put you on hold or hang up on you to get to the next call. Perhaps I’ll learn to use the three-way calling and just invite the new caller into our conversation. All one right?
Be well, I’ll see you in class.
John