Recently I have realized that I am also turning into my father. My Dad is a great guy and has a lot of wonderful things about him, I just never thought of all the things I could pick up from him, this would be it.
My Dad loves simplicity. He loves that he grew up in the 50s and 60s where kids played in the streets, Dads went to work in the one family car, Moms stayed home and cooked big meals, and the whole neighborhood sat on their porches at night. When we were growing up, he always said how he wanted things simpler. He thought we only needed one car (by the time I was 16, we had four), he did not see any need for power windows, and he still does not know how to check voicemail on his cell phone (and the only reason he has a cell phone is because my Mom got him one).
I do not think that all these things are bad, I just finally get where he was coming from. I no longer want a huge house. I always thought that I would be so happy if we had a huge house...and growing up I often expressed my discontent to my parents that we only had a 3 bedroom house. Now that I have a mortgage and have to do the cleaning and repairs (well maybe David does those), I get it. I don't want to spend my whole pay check or all of my free time on my house. I love redecorating and turning our house into a home (I think I have redecorated the living room six times in four years, no kidding), but when that becomes my identity, there is something wrong. David and I dream of building our own house one day, but I am okay with building something small, I just want it to be ours...a smaller version of the house from the Notebook would do just fine :)
I see where he was coming from with technology too. I am by no means against technology...I am sitting in my kids' playroom as I type this, watching them play and catching up on my to do list, but it makes me sad when technology has replaced so many real things. I still have a basic Nokia phone. No internet. No e-mail sent directly to my phone. I see why people have these options on their phones. David greatly benefits from having a GPS on his phone for work and it is convenient when we are out. I just hate it that people are so glued to their phones. Are we really so important that a work e-mail can't wait until tomorrow...or at least until we get to our home office? Or do we just need to feel that important? It's just sad that so many of us find our identity in that. I recently thought about getting a Blackberry, just so my calendar could be on my phone. I was not having enough time in the day to look at my day planner, so I thought that would simplify my life. And then I realized that there is something wrong with the fact that I don't have ten minutes a day to look at a planner and schedule things. I know that having kids makes life more difficult, but I must being doing something wrong if I don't have ten minutes. I did think about how nice it would be to be able to check e-mails at any time, but then I reminded myself that my kids do not need to be raised in a home where their parents are constantly working, even when not at work. And when it comes down to it, my brother is a neurosurgeon and he does not even have a cell phone for every day use and his job survives without him, so I think we are good.
While I'll still learn about technology and enjoy my DVR and laptop, I think I will remind myself of the simple things in life that make life so good. I don't want to look back over my life and remember days of checking my e-mail and phone messages while my kids played in the background. Because the number of e-mails I receive and how fast I respond to them does not make me who I am and it certainly is not how I want my life to be measured.
No comments:
Post a Comment