Hey You! With Your Face in Your Phone. You're F'ing Clueless

I see you everyday. You don't even know how clueless you are...how pathetic. I see you at networking events, in bars and restaurants, and in conference rooms during meetings. Your face is always in your phone. 

You are clueless because you don't know that life is happening all around you, not in your phone. Real people, real emotions, everything you really need to know about a person...a problem...a situation, is right in front of you! But there you are, on your phone. Browsing, searching, looking for data and answers that can not come close to matching the truth and reality that surrounds you. You are more than clueless, my friend, you are oblivious.

You are 20 something...sometimes 30 something. You fancy yourself a digital native, a sophisticated user of technology. Your phone is your lifeline. Indeed, to you, it may be life itself. If you are 40 something or 50 something, with your face in your phone all the time at social events, you are the most pathetic of all. I see you. I know you know what real life is...you are old enough to remember it, but you have turned your back on it. You think you can recapture some lost thing through that phone of yours. Perhaps you think it will make you young again, more hip. What I see are dashed hopes and failed dreams.

So, I know this tirade is not going to change your behavior. That's okay. But know this: I am not going to trust you with my finances or my future. I am not going to give you access to my customers or my cherished connections. I am not going to do any business with you whatsoever. I don't TRUST you. You don't know what real life is, but that is where I live.

As you try to sell me whatever it is you are trying to sell me, in between your addiction to your phone, I will nod and smile and be polite, and know that you are absolutely f*ucking clueless. You are barely worth my time because I could never be as important. I could never compete with your phone. And I don't have to. Fortunately, there are plenty of other people who still live in the real world. I will engage with them because they want to engage with me.

So let me clue you in before it is too late for you...at least too late for our relationship. Life is about relationships...it is emotion and energy. Your phone can never give you that. When you are at a social event or networking event, life is in the eyes of those present. It is in the body language and dialogue of the other people in the same room with you. When you are at a restaurant with your friends, spouse or kids, life is in their smiles, in sharing their day, and in discussing their fears, hopes and aspirations. When you are in meetings with your co-workers or clients, life is in discussing shared goals for success and prosperity, not in checking your email or texts, or endlessly browsing the Internet for God knows what.

So please, get off your f*ucking phone and engage with the people around you. That's where life is. That's where you should be living.

P.S. I wrote this last night after attending a networking event where literally 90% of the attendees stood in a corner looking at their phones, rather than engaging with those around them. Tonight, I was having a quiet, solitary dinner, at a popular local restaurant. In the booth next to me was a young couple....30 something. All of a sudden she burst out, "IF YOU DON'T GET OFF YOUR F*UCKING PHONE, I AM GOING TO TAKE IT FROM YOU AND SMASH IT!

H'mmm, nice to know it's not just me.