December 31, 2010
Here we are, New Year’s Eve…
Are you feeling overwhelmed with gadgets? New, newer, newest- can you keep the pace? Do you want to? Proven studies show the downside of this Instantaneous Information Technology is we are not comprehending as well as we used to. We only skim what we are reading. And we are losing our abilities to think, focus and listen deeply.
TRUE STORY– A woman was talking to her daughter on the cell phone. Suddenly, the line went dead as her daughter had fatally stepped into the path of a bus! Horror stories abound regarding texting in traffic…We’ve become so absorbed with our gadgets, we’ve lost tract of our physical awareness and where we are walking or driving!!!
Here’s a Resolution to consider! Commit to balancing your gadgets with something very human: handwriting! Hand-write more. Reclaim handwriting as a skill or an art-form. Write by hand. It slows you down and will get the deeper recesses of your brain stirred up. Your thoughts will be “better thought out” and will be more graciously received. You can begin by handwriting your “thank you notes” for those holiday gifts…Perhaps you might like to start a handwritten journal, OR maybe the idea of a “gratitude journal” (jotting down one’s daily blessings) appeals to you. Perhaps you’d like to find a pen pal to inspire you! (see Snail Mail Pen Pals post, 11/19/10). Improving one’s handwriting is easier than you may think.* Like anything it takes practice. Guaranteed, the results will please both you and your reader.
As you write down your goals for 2011:
Eat more sensibly,
Get more exercise…etc.
And-
Attend to my humanness by handwriting more!
* Handwriting help will be a big feature in the upcoming posts!
HAPPY MMXI !
Resource- NPR- “The Price Of Putting Your Brain On Computers”
Terry Gross, Fresh Air, Dec.29, 2010