Throughout the ages, man has been constantly seeking to improve their standard of living, technology that would ease their workload, save time, cost, effort. But get this – technology don’t make us better people!! Let me give you a simple example: Your memory is bad, so you get a Pocket PC to help you get organized. But your memory is so bad that you can’t even remember to take your Pocket PC with you…
In spite of the many good technology has brought into our lives, mankind’s values continues to downgrade. Sure, mankind has come out with brilliant ideas to make the most of our time and money… People spend money on research and creating things that would make us more efficient to make more money, just like how the government makes more cars to get buyers to pay them money in order for them to build roads to accommodate the traffic… Oh, that’s a whole other story to tell… The thing is, in the process of the improving our lifestyle, being more civilized, we get distracted and fail to recognize the things that value the most – eternal things. The human heart deteriorates…
Noticed how convenient it is to communicate nowadays? Emails, video-conferencing, hand phones - talk plan, sms plan, prepaid, postpaid… Brilliant ideas, but out of what motives they’re birthed? Children rather sms their friends while having dinner with the family and totally ignoring the fellowship around the table; Instead of telling or at least writing a short message to let someone know that they’re missed, we just give a misscall or send one of those cute forward messages; We even give digital images of flowers and hearts, never the real thing; We prefer chatting on-line with someone we don’t know, knowing full well that both parties are just trying to impress; We apply for lower rates not so that we get to communicate with more people, but that we communicate with the same people on a more frequent basis.
Not forgetting the entertainment industry… new Chinese dramas, action movie, love story, epic, discos and pubs… We all want to have a great time, don’t we? __ “Mom, don’t tell me how your day was now!! Can’t you see I’m watching tv?” (OUCH!!) __ “No, bro, I’m not free to help you with your homework tonight, I’m going to the movies with friends.” __ “What did you say?! I can’t hear you, the music’s too loud!! Just shut up and dance!!” __ Why do we wait for a black out to start helping out in the house? Why do we drown emotions (ours and others’) with alcohol and loud music? Why is it the only time we shed a tear is when we’re watching a sad story? How is it that we know more about our favourite singer than our next-door neighbour?
What about spending time with the people you know? What’d happened to conversing, talking, and looking eye-to-eye? What about leaning on a friend’s shoulder? We have substituted our tears with smileys, our tone with colour or font cases… Instead of communicating, we have become dumb. We keep the phone numbers of our friends but fail to even call them once; We add people into our Friendster list but we can’t say that we truly know them or that we’re really friends; We ask “How are you?” but can’t be bothered to wait for the reply. What about making time and effort to really get to know another human being, share joy and sorrow, or lend a helping hand?
Trust me, I’m not against technology or brilliant ideas... or movies, or cute messages, emailing(Just like how I’m not against pink colour). My God-given dream does require me to use technology+brilliant ideas. But I think that we value our time and money and pride more than we value life, people, and the little wonders of life… We found another way to hide ourselves from each other, another easy way out, another opportunity to be self-centered and pretend to care, another mask to disguise our true selves… We become more fake, less sincere; more judgmental, less understanding. We deteriorate, and become dead inside.
Running with my God-given dream, I cannot afford to be without sincere relationships. I can't substitute that face-to-face, brother-to-brother, heart-to-heart connection... I have to connect with my heart. Yes, I do use technology. But technology has no match with what a sincere heart can achieve. I'm still learning, still implementing, still trying, still failing... But more importantly, I'm still running... WOW!!
What are your dreams? Do you have one with an impact that will last forever?
Make time to build things that last – relationships, friends, your heart.
