Life Without A Cell Phone

We're all so cool, aren't we?

Still, here's a little tip:  Next time you're walking down the street with your vanilla latte, oversized shades, chatting away into your bluetooth, feeling oh so trendy, oh so phat, or rad, or cool, or whatever the word of the day happens to be, just remember that no matter who you are, no matter what you wear, twenty years from now your children WILL be laughing at you.

Seen any good movies from the eighties lately? 

(Cue the soft musical stylings of Peter Gabriel):  A tanned man in crotch-hugging acid-washed jeans screeches up in front of a beach house in a flashy red convertable. He jogs casually through the carpeted, white-on-white living room, and heads out through the glass patio door toward a pristine beach.  His feathered blonde hair flutters softly in the breeze as curls of chest hair peek invitingly over the top of his crisp polo shirt.  The surf crashes as he pulls out his cell phone to make a call.

...And it's huge!  He holds the brick-sized phone in two hands, pulls the antenna out with a flourish.

(Cue laughter and mocking by current-day viewers).  

Now, my husband and I are two of the very last cell-phone hold-outs left on planet earth (or so it seems).  If we want to make plans with someone, we have to plan ahead and call them from home.  If we get lost, we have to rely on the kindness (or at least pity) of strangers.  If our car breaks down in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a blizzard...well, then we're just plain hooped. 

I'm not bragging, it's not convenient.  

I'm just saying that these things that we begin to see almost as extensions of ourselves are, well, not.  That the pursuit of the cache that comes with possessions is a fool's errand, and our foolishness will, in time, be revealed. 

We can enjoy what we wear, take delight in our gadgets, refine our personal sense of style, so long as we cherish and encourage the things that are REAL:  our relationships with one another, our strengths of character, our love of goodness and peace in the world.