Staying Connected

Bummer!  My primary email account has been down for hours, and it could be down for days!

This is a source of great frustration and irritation for me.  I feel out of touch with my friends because of it.  I feel like I’m missing something without it.  I feel like the world is passing me by! 

And that’s the email publishers would use to contact me!!

That’s the email Ellen DeGeneres would use to contact me as well!  What if... ?!

This is just TERRIBLE!  This is HORRIBLE!  I’m disconnected from humanity AND my future!

Excuse me a moment.  I need to take a deep breath and let it out, slowly…

OK.  I’m better now.  I'm back to reality.

Let’s be realistic.  Why would the publishers pick today, of all days, to shower me with offers?  Why wouldn’t Ellen just pick up the phone to call me, if she wanted to reach me?

Disconnected from humanity?! Good grief! 

I have people all around me at the office.  All I have to do is get up and walk the halls to connect with people. 

I have a phone.  All I have to do is pick it up and call someone.

I have other email accounts that are working.  All I have to do is use those.

I’m on Facebook.  I have a car.  I’m able to get in it and drive to wherever there are people.

So, why do I feel disconnected when just one of my email accounts isn’t working today?  Granted, it is the main one, but still…

It’s only one means of communicating.  I’m surrounded by so many others ways of connecting — other ways that are more personal.  I know all of this, but it doesn’t stop me from checking to see if the primary email is back up.

This is because being connected is such a very strong need that we all have.  We have that primal need to connect with someone or someone(s) — whether it is on a personal, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual level.  We need that connection with another person or persons. 

We are social beings and survive hardships with the help of others.  Life isn’t easy, and it’s even more difficult if you try to go through it alone. 

Sadly, with the advent of cyberspace, many have chosen to close themselves off from the real world and hide in the virtual worlds created with computers.

I see teens and “grown-ups” spending hours and hours on their computers and virtual online games — trying to leave the real world behind them.  Many are wasting their lives away behind their computer screens.  In doing so, they have created financial, relationship, and health issues for themselves.

Don’t get me wrong!  Playing and interacting with others on the computer can be a healthy diversion and an educational experience.  It can help develop social connections and even provide a safe training ground for developing technical and social skills needed in the real world — but the point is to transfer those skills to the real world.

The Internet and online games allow us to experience things that we would never have been able to experience in our own little worlds.  We can meet people from around the globe — people we would never have been able to meet otherwise (for example, all of you).

In the right environment, this virtual reality can provide perspective, support, hope, acceptance, guidance, and affirmation that are missing from our physical environment. 

While this experience can help develop social connections, it can also cut you off from interacting with the people around you in the real world — especially if you spend too much time in that other world. 

That other world can also be a very dangerous world.  In this virtual world, it is easy for people to betray you — to pretend to be something other than what they are… predators. 

Just as in the real world, you need to choose your friends carefully.  Be cautious of what you share when conversing with unknown individuals in various Internet chat rooms or online dating establishments, blogs, message boards, games, forums, etc.  Don’t give out personal information to someone you don’t know. 

If those you meet online — or offline, for that matter — tell you not to tell others about them, then they are not to be trusted.  They are not being honest with you, no matter how nice and honest they sound.  Don’t go out to meet these people.  Tell your family, friends, or someone in authority about these people, because their end game is to steal your money, betray your trust, and, possibly, take your life. 

Yes.  This virtual world can be just as dangerous and harmful to us as the real world is. 

Gosh… I have no idea how I got on that soapbox, and I apologize.  I better stop now… and go check to see if my email account is back up yet. 

P.S.  My email is back up... but no emails from publishers and none from Ellen, either. 

  

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