Convenience is Bliss

I have to have another cell phone rant. I know that if you have ever bothered to ask me my list of pet peeves, you probably already know that this is near the top of the list, and I also know that if you have never bothered to ask me what my list of pet peeves entails, it is probably because you don't really want to know. I don't really blame you. Rants tend to be a little one-sided. Though that is sort of the nature of a blog in the first place. And if you read this blog ever, I have to assume that must imply that you at least like me a little bit, and if you like me at all, you must either enjoy rants or you have learned how to endure them/tune them out. Tuning out blog rants is especially easy, since I am not there to have hurt feelings about you reading a book or falling asleep while I am talking about something I think is important. So without further ado...

Cell phones make me mad. I understand that they are very useful. I will even go so far as to say that there have been moments in my life when I have wished for a brief moment that I had one so that I could work out some kinks in Friday night plans etc. But I deal with those moments of inconvenience. Part of it, I will freely admit, is that I am being stubborn. That is indeed one of my character traits, and I know that is something I need to work on sometimes, but I like that I am stubborn about this, so I don't expect it to change that soon. Cell phones very easily take over people's lives. We all have seen about a billion examples of people who can't go anywhere without checking their phones for texts, calling their boyfriends every 12 minutes, disrupting conversations with good friends to take a call, texting in class (I can tell you, very distracting)... I could go on and on. Okay, so I have established that some people take the cell phone a little too far (understatement of the year). To be fair, let's now consider the advantages of cell phones. You can call for help if you have trouble on the road, you can call your friend to find out where they are when you have been waiting at the designated spot for 25 minutes alone, you can keep yourself busy when you are bored in class. I think the main positive thing cell phones do is make things more convenient. Personally, I think that convenience is not necessarily the end we should always be seeking. Sure, it is nice for things to be convenient. But it is also nice when things increase our organizational skills, and when things build relationship and community. So it comes down to a question of whether the convenience is worth the cost.

I know that some people who have a cell phone and don't let it get out of hand (no pun intended), and perhaps that is the best (and hardest) place to be. It is easy for me to not get addicted to my cell phone because it is non-existent. What is hard is to have one and not let it take over. I think that's how lots of things in life are. It is easiest to push hard to one side on an issue, because then we never need to practice balance. But I think the gray area is often the best place to be, and that is hard, because it takes constant reassessment and effort. That sounds a little inconvenient.

I could go on and on, but I won't. I will, however, post a link to a pretty funny/good article on this topic. Click on the "family" link on the left and scroll down to "Don't Mind the Mess."