If you are anything like me, then you have a tendency to make mountains out of molehills! Whatever is in front of me is all consuming until it is resolved and then it is on to the next thing. I enjoy putting out fires, but my focus and my propensity to quick decisions can sometimes have poor results.
I am slowly learning that it is okay to write and email, let it sit in the drafts for a while . . . And if it was really meant to be sent, then it will come to my attention later. If an email is dicey enough to warrant consideration to be put in the drafts, then I am finding that it rarely ends up being sent and never has ended up being sent in its original form. Something about giving a little time, helps to calm my aggressive tendency. Generally speaking, if I feel like I have to ask someone else to read an email and let me know if it comes off too angry, then it probably does come off a little angry.
We live in a culture of instant communication. We can send photos, upload them to the world, write a relationship ending text, blog about something we don’t like, call someone and chew them out, and criticize another person’s decision by email, and all of this can happen within a few minutes on a Monday morning from the confines of our office space.
I am growing weary and wary of my own communication with others. There is something nice about being able to pause and think. So often I just want to address an issue to get it off my chest or to strike while the iron’s hot! But Proverbs 29:11 says, “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”
I am trying to allow some process time to my communication. It has certainly changed some of my interactions with others and has probably averted making things more heated than they needed to be in some situations. Just because we can communicate immediately doesn’t always mean we should. Technology cannot tell us whether or not we SHOULD send it . . . It just tells us we CAN send it.
