I left the house without my phone the other day. Before I left I kept thinking I was forgetting something. I kept feeling my pockets. I had my car keys and fob, I had my money and credit cards. Why was I feeling like something wasn’t there?
Halfway to the store, I realized I didn’t have my phone. That’s a very weird and helpless feeling. To tell you the truth I hardly every answer the phone, so it wasn’t like I was expecting any phone calls. But still. My whole life is on that phone. I felt naked.
Makes you wonder how we did things in the past.
Before cell phones, I ran a whole business by hardly ever being there. I was a printing broker and I worked maybe an hour or two a day. I picked up jobs early and then ran to the office in the morning, then for a bit after that I went to printers to bring the jobs over and was done by 11:00 am or noon. After that I was out all day – mostly at the beach.
People couldn’t reach me. They had to leave a message on my answering machine. And they did. I literally printed school newspapers, all sorts of things for local hospitals, clubs, the American Cancer Society, books for many organizations, etc., all doing it within an hour or two a day.
Years later I had a couple of neighbors who were attorneys. They lived between Miami and New Hampshire. I asked her how they did it, you know, handling clients, going back and forth, which was a silly question coming from me, who worked an hour a day for so many years.
She told me, “Tom, as long as you answer your phone, they don’t care where you are.” This of course, was after we all had cell phones.
And I did that for years, but now, I don’t answer the phone. With my business account, I have a message that tells people to email me if they need something, and that’s been working out fine. As for personal calls, no one really leaves a message. When I see a missed call, I return the call or text them back when I have a chance.
When I got home from the store and checked my phone, there were no calls or emails or texts. The way I like it to be. Silence.
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I feel the same. On the rare occasion that I forget to take my phone with me I am momentarily alarmed and then I am aggrevated with myself for feeling so dependent on the thing.
I’m old enough to have had a professional career without really using a cell phone and yet I seem to think that my world now requires constant contact.
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