I hate texting. It drives me nuts.

Don’t get me wrong, I do use texting to talk to friends and family who live across the country, but we tend to talk about specific thing—like funny moments or classroom incidents.

What I don’t like is the idle chitchat texting. The ones where you have a million texts that go back and forth about nothing. It’s not that I don’t enjoy talking to people, it’s just that when my phone is constantly going off, it feels like I can’t get anything else done.

I think this is a problem with our generation. We like to be in contact all the time. We want to know what’s going on at all moments of the day. Yet despite, this we have a massive disconnect. We can’t talk face-to-face. We use our cellphones as an out to having a discussion with a stranger or making eye contact, or even just being by oneself.

We are uncomfortable with idleness. We have to constantly be doing something. Even if that means texting about nothing.

We need to learn how to be comfortable with being still. Of focusing on what is right in front of us. Of the present moment.

It’s time to set down our phones. Trust me, your conversations with people will be so much more fruitful and magical if you save it for when you are face-to-face. You will learn more about the world in front of you if you aren’t staring at a screen constantly.

You will feel better. Your relationships will be better. You will become far less concerned with the arbitrary and more concerned with what really, truly matters.

So, I’ll talk to you later. I’m sure we’ve got a lot to talk about.