I like to believe that I remember a time when life was a little slower, and seemed a little easier.
When the summer days were long, and it seemed like the fun times wouldn’t end. You didn’t worry about being paged, texted, called, nor having to sift through voicemails. If you weren’t home when the phone rang, you just didn’t get the message. And with teller marketers, today, that’s a good thing.
You went to school, and opened up a book. You wrote with a real pencil and on paper. You would draw your dreams out on construction paper, and put them on a real board on your wall to see every day. You played super-heroes and villains with real people in a real environment.
The most technology you had to worry about was the remote on the TV, and you enjoyed that because you didn’t have to get up to change the channel.
Make no mistake.
All the advances in technology have helped progress life substantially.
There are many phones calls we should have caught that we didn’t, missing out on opportunities. We’re able to reach people in places we never would have without the advancement in audio and video production. We’re able to connect and stay connected because of the progress in computer and networking technology.
But I say, to what end?
What’s your purpose for using the technology that you do?
Does it fit who you are?
Is it serving the purpose of helping you achieve your goals?
I think about how Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most richest individuals and savvy business person, doesn’t have a computer in his office. He uses one at home to spend more time playing bridge than almost anything else. He doesn’t surround himself with tech or any other item that he doesn’t need or doesn’t help fulfill his mission.
Or Sam Walton. A man who drove an old Ford truck, and bought his clothes from his own store.
Now, it goes without saying that Wal-Mart is a very advanced retail store, now. That tech helps serves their mission to bring low prices to their customers.
How could you use what you have better?
What are you not doing that you should be doing?
Are you missing the phones calls that you should get?
How can you find the right technology that would help catapult your ministry, your organization, your business?
The one thing I found interesting about Sam Walton was that he was always learning. In his biography he wrote, “I probably visited more headquarters’ offices of more discounters than anybody else…ever. I would just show up and say, “Hi, I’m Sam Walton from Bentonville, Arkansas. We’ve got a few stores out there, and I’d like to visit with Mr. So-and-So whoever the head of the company was about this business. And as often as not, they’d let me in, maybe out of curiosity, and I’d ask lots of questions about pricing and distribution, whatever. I learned a lot that way” (Sam Walton, Sam Walton, (New York: Doubleday, 1992) p. 81).
Who are you learning from that could help you use today’s technology to further your mission goals?
That’s what this journey of life is about. Learning all that we can from competent people, and sharing that with others to help lift them up.
Then, maybe one day we’ll get back to just drinking tea on a cool, summer afternoon, or watching the ships come in at the dock of the bay.
