In his book The Secret of Staying in Love, author, John Joseph Powell, profoundly proclaims, “It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.” Be present. That is a relatively new phrase that is being thrown around a lot. But what does it really mean? Who really benefits? What are we missing if we are not present? I would assert….Life.
You have heard the old adage, things are not always as they seem. A person’s perception of the facts is sometimes more important than the actual facts.
When I was in middle and high school I had a best friend, Holly, we did everything together. Holly was tall, thin with wavy dark brown hair and hazel green eyes. I was short, little, with straight blondish hair and blue eyes. We looked nothing alike and yet had everything in common.
I remember the first day I met her. It was eighth grade and I had a boyfriend; my first boyfriend. I remember sitting in the classroom and seeing my super cool boyfriend cruise by the door, a moment later I saw Holly saunter by. “Hum… who was That?!”, I wondered with jealously. A few days later Holly walked up to me and told me that my boyfriend wanted to break up with me. I casually replied, “Okay”, shrugged my shoulders, and walked off. From that day on Holly and I became besties. How could I become best friends with “that girl” who stole my very first boyfriend? Easy, because she never did. Later she told me, “Why would I want to date a guy that you couldn’t care less if he broke up with you?!”
Friendship is a powerful force. I would venture to say it is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. God created us to be in fellowship with one another. Fellowship with Him. Fellowship with our family. Fellowship with our friends. Fellowship with acquaintances. Fellowship with human beings. We are made to interact with other human beings.
The phone in the palm of our hand opens a window to a whole new world, but if we are not careful, it also slams the door to humanity; the present, the here and now.
I suspect we have all felt slighted by somebody on their phone, computer or tablet. I also know we have all been the offenders with these same devices, and I might add one more, the TV. There is nothing wrong with any of these electronic devices, it is how we use them that matters most.
There is scientific evidence that when we receive notifications or alerts on our cell phones that dopamine is released in our brain. Dopamine is the hormone which is responsible for our “fight or flight” response. So, you get the picture, when we are on our phones day and night our bodies respond like they are in a continual state of stress and fear. Add to that the dangerous chemicals we are exposed to every day, and you can see that our brains are over stimulated, our adrenal glands are way over-worked, our bodies are constantly living at a super high stress level. The human body isn’t designed to function this way.
But I don’t want to focus on the body’s natural response to our love affair with our smart phones, I want to focus on human beings. Remember when I said a person’s perception of the facts sometimes outweighs the facts themselves? The obvious inference in this statement is that our intent is not what truly matters. It is how the other person perceives our intent that matters.
Husband, will you turn off the football game and listen to her words? Wife, will you lay down your cell phone long enough to focus on what he means. Parents, does saying I love you to young children as you type, supersede their need for hugs? Teens and parents alike, do you really care if you don’t bother to look up and acknowledge one another? Friends, will you always still be standing there after I send this one last quick text? Acquaintances, could we have been friends if I cared more about you than what Susie was wearing in her prom photos on Instagram? The human being in the line at Walmart, do you really have any inherent value or worth at all? I don’t know. I didn’t speak to you. I never even looked up.
My friends can we lay down our devices long enough to reflect the beauty in others? Will we choose to interact with others the way that we are created to do? Will we choose to differentiate between the here and now and our constant dopamine addiction? Will we choose to really live? It is going to take a cognitive choice. Today, I just have two words: Be Present!
Taking Back Happy 