I grew up with a firm understanding that there are certain things acceptable when it comes to interacting with friends and neighbours. There were some very strict and understandable rules like no noise before lunch on a Sunday, although this is something that relaxed when we moved to a house whose quiet neighbours found Sundays the day to let rip on the volume.
One of these ideas forced on my upbringing was that seemingly innocent statement:
“they would not want you to call now – they will be busy!”
this has always stuck in the back of my mind as odd but it gets really confused when you think about responsibility, time management, and the human desire to behave the way we believe another human wants us to.
Today my mother spoke of the fact that she had difficulty for, something approaching 2 months, trying to get hold of someone on the phone. When she spoke to this relation today she explained to me that you don’t call someone if, for example, you know that they do the shopping on a friday.
Why?
From many many books, seminars and experiences of helping others and progressing yourself, I am versed in the concepts of self help. The areas of interest here involve our choices: how we choose to react & control our emotional state. Given any time in the hands of the self help or development community you would understand that you can take responsibility for your responses. Responsibility is the Ability to Respond. I can choose my emotional response, it appears most do not have any control over their own response. I am not able to concern myself with others reactions.
Our control over the little voice that constantly tells us not to offend other people is part of this problem. Why do we let ourselves be concerned with other peoples responses when that is their responsibility not ours. How many people have you met who have no emotional control, those who are easily offended and blame you for giving that offense. Especially when you are purely being honest and they seem to prefer you to lie to them to help them deal with real life. They have not the emotional intelligence to choose their own ability to respond.
I am aware I am ranting again however I cannot gel with the idea that I should guess at what point this person would be available to answer their phone so that I don’t offend their sensibilities. I also want to rant about choice of doing the things that are important in life. Is that ringing phone really that important?
We have been taught for years that we should not use the phone wile driving. Indeed the arrival of the answering machine, and asynchronus communications system like email and text messaging, meant that the phone should not need answering, which is the point of calling it a answering machine. You can always pull over and call back if it is important and urgent.
