My daughter, Anja, started high school and my son, Tristan, started sixth grade this morning. It’s back to school time! When I was in school, when the earth was cooling, we didn’t have cell phones. We didn’t have iPads. We didn’t have jeans that cost extra if you bought them with holes already in them.
An interesting article came out today in the national news talking about how kids today never knew a world where Kurt Cobain was alive or where they had to take their film to the drug store to get developed. If you’re too young to get this last reference, you’re a punk.
But no matter how much the world and technology changes, it serves us well to remember that human nature never changes. People will always want to be appreciated and respected. We’ll always feel better when we receive a sincere compliment.
So while you’re keeping up with all the cool, gee-whiz, interwebs, electronics dohickeys, remember that all these tools are designed to increase human interaction, not decrease it. Take yourself back to school. Reread Dale Carnegie’s book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. And look at the world and the people around you through the eyes of a fascinated kid. The eleven or thirteen year-old boy or girl is still in there, you know.