Phone-i-ness

Posted on April 7, 2005 in Ettiquette

In my recent sickness, many have promised to call, but few have. This can be frustrating when you spend your days alone with little to shave the stubble of the hours. I realize, however, that what must be good behavior for others must be good, also, for myself. So I have made it my business to call those who have a need for conversation.

This expands into two broader principles that I wrote down in my journal as worth rising towards:

• Make no promises that I can’t keep.
• Keep all the promises that I make.
• Expect no one else to live like this.

I believe these to be corollary to the Golden Rule. Am I right?

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Find what irks you. Perform the appropriate remedy on yourself.

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On a related note, I’ve become addicted to text messaging. This is fine except there are situations where text messaging breaks down. So you try to call the person. What do you get? The beeps in your ear of them sending their next text message out. Then I realize how incomplete a text message can be. With only a clumsy keypad and a limit of 200 characters, what can you say?