Live Today Like You Still Have a Rotary Phone

I saw this old rotary phone in an antique store, and I thought it was funny that someone wrote the numbers onto the dial. Then I realized that we have multiple generations that have never used or seen a rotary phone, and they would not know that each ‘hole’ represented both a number and letters. I stood there remembering the last time I used a rotary phone, which was decades ago. It was when a telephone was simply a telephone. It didn’t allow you to do your banking, or travel, or even provide access to the internet. A rotary phone was simply a phone, nothing more and nothing less. It had one stated purpose, to allow you to talk to others. Did we invent other uses, sure…door stop, paper weight, teenage control device. Yet in the end this rotary telephone was our opening to be able to talk to anyone, anywhere in the world.

Technology has changed in leaps and bounds since this device was in every household. Times have changed. People have changed. Our culture and a our access to information has been transformed. And with all that change and transformation we have new problems. We have an addiction to information and our phones, and we find it hard to interact with people anymore. We Google and search, view videos and swipe from screen to screen without even realizing that we are still in the same room with people we care about. One of the beauties of a rotary phone was that when you hung it up, you were then free to go live your life with the people in the room. Now when we hang up our ‘smart’ phones we find it difficult to simply live.

Live today as if you were using a rotary phone. When you hang up a call, go interact with the people. With your hands free, give someone a hug or pat them on the back, sit still or maybe even read an actual book. Let your phone simply be a phone and rebuild the relationships with the people in the room. Let the world rotate without you getting buzzed for updates, and talk to the people in your vicinity simply because you can.