Life Lesson 283 - Could The World Be Better?

Do you ever wonder as I do, could the world be a better place.  It seems to me that a good start would be if people would look up from their smart phones once in a while to smile or engage other people. Having just come back from town I note that most people walk around with their smart phone to their ear or walking along looking down at it. The information highway is a wonderful thing but walking around in a bubble shutting other people out is not good either. I suspect that many do that just so they appear busy and don't have to engage others, and isolate themselves.  I wonder what ever happened to the old fashioned way of looking a stranger in the eye and talking to them - even if it was just about the weather.

It seems to me that people today seem so wrapped up in themselves and looking busy that they lose their connection with other people. What could be so important that they have to be talking all the time on their smart phone. As they walk around the store, as they drive their vehicle, as they stand in the check out line, wait at the doctors office and just about every where else they go. Since I don't have one maybe I don't fully understand that they are like an adult pacifier.  Maybe they have just lost the sensitivity toward others with all this new technology that is available.  Maybe there is a new  etiquette today that you don't smile or make eye contact when you are pretending to be engaged in conversation on your phone. I have over heard some of those important conversations and they are not working if you seek to be smarter.  Actually they seem to be dumbing down a lot of the population if you ask me.

It used to be that safe burglars would sand their finger tips to make them super sensitive and the nerves so acute that they could feel the tumblers fall into place as they turned the dial. Maybe we need to sand our senses so that we are more aware of the people around us so we can compliment someone on their nice shoes, hair style, smile, or just talk about the weather. Would that make the world a better place?  I think so but then safe crackers no longer sand their finger tips because the safes today are electronic and tumblers don't fall into place anymore.  I guess the same rational applies to interpersonal relations as long as we can hold a smart phone to our ear or walk along holding it in front of us.  Maybe we no longer need the human interaction like we once did, and now we can have the perfect 'virtual' relationship electronically.

Just my observation but maybe the world hasn't changed at all.  Maybe we have changed and isolated ourselves. Technology can be a very good thing to possess but so can human contact with strangers.