Our methodology of keeping up with one another certainly has evolved over time. I was thinking back, remembering party lines! I’d pick up the phone and find that someone else was using the line. Gosh, if they had a lot to say, I might have to wait several minutes before I could call my friend with my most important teen-ager news. My fifteen year old niece has no concept of a rotary dial phone, let alone a party line! And I sent a card to my grandparents for birthdays. How wonderful it was to get a letter in the mail from a pen pal!
If I want to talk with my kids today, I can text them. That usually produces a one-word response but hey, they answered! My cell phone shows me who’s trying to contact me. I can pick up or choose to ignore. I can talk with several friends at a time or see them on Skype!
Facebook probably has been the biggest breakthrough in communication in my lifetime. I can know daily what the kids are up to, how my brother in California is faring and see pictures of my grandkids. I can communicate with clients, find new clients and make new friends that I’d never have the opportunity to meet, were it not for ‘friends of friends’.
I met Sean Anderson when AOL ran a story on him a few years ago. Sean was enroute to a healthy weight, having once weighed in excess of 500 lbs! Many of his friends are now my friends too. I look forward to his daily snippets of wisdom. Oh yeah, and he wrote a book too – Transformation Road!
This morning, as usual, I checked the birthday reminders, and my dear friend Janet Carmine popped up. I guess her family is maintaining the page, but Janet left this world on August 18th, 2010. The reminder pulled the strings of my heart – again. I miss my friend so much. I wonder if she has Facebook in Heaven? She’s truly there, singing with the Sweet Adolines and dancing with Al!
I recently was hacked on Facebook. Honey Jones will remain in my memory as the blonde bimbo who used my identity to sell Nike sneakers. Now, who in their right mind would buy shoes from a Facebook hacker? I have no idea. I finally was able to regain control of my account, but in the process, lost many of my friends, and friends of friends.
I learned a lot from the hacker – guard what you hold valuable. I’ve changed all my passwords – email, bank accounts and of course, Facebook. You can rest assured that I will change passwords with great regularity in the future.
I am left wondering from this whole thing. I can’t imagine the contributions to society that fell by the wayside, because some talented individual placed their efforts into hacking, rather than something helpful. It makes me want to be the very best person I can be. I want to contribute. I want to make a difference.
