TGIF! Happy Friday All! 😊 I hope you all had a fantastic Friday. It’s been a few days since my last post. I think I wanted to get in another post by Wednesday or Thursday but unfortunately, I either couldn’t find the time or I was really tired after work. It’s been a long week, for sure.

I actually worked from home day and I have to admit, I kind of missed having some human interaction. For anyone who knows me personally, knows that I’m quite to myself for the most part. So this feeling you are hearing (reading) may come as a surprise; it even surprised myself. 

I don’t want to take too much of your time because it’s Friday night and you could be out interacting with your friends and I definitely don’t want to disrupt that which bring me to this post: being in the moment.

We are all guilty of being distracted by technology instead of interacting with other human beings. We love Netflix, Youtube, and scrolling on Instagram and/or Facebook. Our generation is attached the digital media; you may even see your parents gravitating to the use of technology. Now, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Technology is a reminder how far we’ve come as innovators in developing world. 

However, we can’t dismiss some of the down impacts it may have been brought upon our social interactions. It’s becoming the “norm” to pick up a phone and text someone rather than make a phone call and talk to someone. We text our friends everyday, we text our parents, we post on Instagram, we hit the “like” button on Facebook, etc. In person, do we have the same interaction? Can we talk to others the same way we text them? 

I have been trying to break out of my shell a bit and have more personal interactions with people. I am actually opposed to being on my phone when I’m with someone or in a group. This is just for myself though. I’m not going to tell the people I’m with to get off their phones because everyone has different circumstances for why they need to be on their phone. They could be waiting for an important response or a sudden emergency that came up. You just don’t know. 

There are two things that factor into why I’m opposed to being on my own phone when I’m interacting with another person or people in general: 

(1) Several years ago, I was getting ready to go out to PB with my best friend for her birthday. We were just chilling in her room with her coworker, getting ready and I was sitting on my phone, going back and forth in a text with my boyfriend at the time. And she turns to me, realized I wasn’t really being interactive and I looked at her and said “What?” And she’s says “You know how I feel about that” And by “that,” she means me being on my phone when I really should be in the moment. I can’t even be mad about that. She was right. That has forever dented me. In a good way, of course. 

(2) My top love language is quality time. That should say enough. I just want quality time with whoever I’m with in that very moment. 

These two factors have impacted how I interact with others in real life. I will admit, I definitely do the occasional “let me take a photo for the gram story” but I immediately put my phone down after I’m done. I love interacting with people; hearing them talk. I’m a rather quiet person but I would rather much be quiet than to just get on my phone. I just want to be in the moment.

I encourage everyone to do the same. The next time you hang out with your family or friends or you’re just having a conversation with another person, try to not look at your phone (I know it’s hard). We should spend more time trying to live in the moment because that is where most memories are made and could actually be stored in your memory and not just on some cloud. 

And before someone calls me out: Yes. I am posting on Instagram for 365 days so I will be active on my phone BUT I’m doing this my boyfriend. We go out to places, take pics of these moments and talk about when we’ll post, what our captions would be, etc. We’re still interacting with each other and we spend even more quality time. It’s a fun experience to do together. No interactions are lost. 

Again, come together and interact with others. Be in the moment. Don’t ever the miss the moment. Spend quality time. All of the above. 

It’s Friday night. I’m going to get off of my MacBook now, go hang out with my Bear and get ready to go out with on a double date with our friends. Can’t wait for that human interaction. & FOOD. I LOVE FOOD 🙂

Until the next post,

With love and support,

#beingjtran❤️🌻

Relatable + Empathetic (2019) friday interaction memories personalblog writing