If you care about someone, show them – and put away your phone
Y ears ago I was sitting in a cafe before work when an exhausted-looking man and his toddler son came in. A “One cappuccino and one babyccino please” later, they sat at the table next to mine. The boy was a bit snotty and whiny, and I could see his dad was working hard to keep him entertained, to give him the time and attention he needed. And then I saw the moment where that time and attention ran out. The man’s focus slipped away, his hand dropping down to his pocket, his tired eyes sliding across to the screen as he eased out his phone …
And then I saw the scream. I saw it before I heard it, because the very loud scream was preceded by a terrifying silent scream (my own child also does a very potent silent scream, so I recognise this retrospectively). The father realised at this point that the game was up, shoved his phone back in his pocket and, defeated, carried his child out of the cafe in one arm, his other hand steering the empty pushchair.
Almost everything worthwhile requires time and attention, and if we want to build a better life, we need to receive more and we need to give more. We obviously need to offer more time and attention to our loved ones – really speaking and listening to each other rather than conducting conversations while looking at a screen. And obviously we need to spend more time on, and pay more attention to, the things we love to do, whether that’s walking in nature or reading or being creative or playing – a game or an instrument. The problem is that we know these things, but we struggle to do them, because we do not seem able to give ourselves – specifically our minds – the time and attention we deserve.
