How do you best communicate? Today we have so many options. There are the social networks like Facebook and Twitter, websites and blogs, like the one you are reading right now. But there are many others ways – books, kindles, texting, or phone calls. And let’s not forget about the old fashioned ways – like talking to each other face-to-face or writing letters. Remember that?? — where you sit down and actually use your hand and a pen to write down your thoughts on paper?
I’ve been making a concerted effort most recently to use that “old” way of communicating by writing notes and letters to family and friends. For instance, I like to write to my Aunt Sophie. She will be 90 tomorrow – November 9 – and writing is just the natural way to communicate with her. Thank goodness for Aunt Sophie for she keeps me in touch with the old fashioned, but ever elegant way of communicating. It keeps my penmanship in check. Now there’s a word you don’t hear often these days. Penmanship. They used to actually teach that in schools – yes, kids, penmanship
Writing a letter also gets me to slow down my thought process a bit. I have a habit of thinking and talking way too fast – moving from one idea to the next at an alarming pace. I know this can often frustrate my listener. Just ask my husband!
But when you have to take the time to write down the message you are trying to convey, you are forced to slow down and focus on each word. This can be a good thing. You might respond, “I just don’t have time for that.” Well, I believe we can make the time to slow our lives and our ways of communicating just a bit and bring back courtesy and etiquette.
I challenge you to try it. The next time you owe someone a “thank you” for a gift or something they did for you, try the lost courtesy of a handwritten thank you note. And write out the envelope too – don’t run the envelope through the printer with that address that you have saved in your address book. I promise you there is something about doing this by hand that will relax you as you really think about each word that you are writing.
