Doesn’t it seem as though, some days, all the electronics around you conspire to behave badly, or not work at all?
Today has been one of those days for me, and it makes me stop and count my blessings. I have my own company, and I must remind myself on days like this that if I didn’t have clients, I wouldn’t have these problems. And if didn’t have clients, I wouldn’t have this business. And that would suck.
Technology has made our lives at once simpler and more complex. We communicate more widely and more freely, but have less true human contact. We can purchase our goods online, but miss the interaction with another human being. Social networking sites bring people together who would otherwise never cross paths, in the virtual world or in the real world. And if some of those people were better left unmet, the site creates something of a buffer against what might otherwise be an unpleasant encounter.
My work is much like that — my clients have access to technology they would never otherwise be exposed to. It helps their businesses, but adds another layer of complexity to the operation of said business. In the end, I like to think that the benefits outweigh the costs, but in the big picture, one never knows.
I often wonder what we would do if suddenly the entire planet’s power grid were to spontaneously and permanently fail. In New York City during the blackout a couple of years ago, the kindness and help that people extended to one another was truly an amazing phenomenon. Would it continue? Let’s hope so.
And in the meantime, let’s be as helpful to one another as though it had happened.
