New and Improved

I tend to like anything that makes my life easier.  I think most of us are that way, aren't we?  Who wants to have to go down to the creek with a washboard to clean the family's clothes?  Who wants to have to hook the wagon to the mule to go in to town?  Who wants to have to fire up the wood stove to cook breakfast in the morning?  Who wants to have to trek to the outhouse for our morning constitutional?  I guess I'm just growing old and set in my ways, though.  I'm having a hard time keeping up with the times.  I feel a little guilty because here I am a technology coach - supporting other educators and sharing ideas and assistance to make their job easier by using technological tools - and I am confessing that I am resistant to change.

It seems there is always something that is updated and made to be new and improved.  I'm all for progress, I just need the progress to go at my own pace instead of me having to sprint along to try to catch up.  That is certainly how I feel since I got my new phone.  You can read more about that service experience HERE and HERE. 

I am not a big phone lover.  I guess that is part of the issue.  I want a phone just so I can call folks when I want to talk to them - and usually that is to ask a question - not just to pass the time away.  I'd rather visit face-to-face to catch up and pass the time away.  I know that is old-fashioned but so be it. 

I will admit that I also felt there was no need for me to text message up until a couple of years ago.  My students spent some time trying to teach me how to text because they wanted me to be "young and hip" and I guess we all want to be that, huh?  What really pushed me to learn to text is that I got a phone which has a keyboard - not so much thinking and punching of numbers to try to get a word there on the screen.  You see, I'm good at typing with a keyboard.  (Other resistant people must have the same skills and traits if companies are producing such a product.)

So, when it came time for Mike and I to upgrade our phones, we struggled.  We were comfortable with the known and familiar.  We didn't need a phone for the internet; we had a laptop.  We didn't need all those fancy and smart gadgets.  We just wanted to talk and occasionally send a text message.  So, why should we pay for a data package that we didn't really want to use?  Why did we need something new and improved?

Yet, when I shopped for the new upgrades, the options for the old-and-out-of-date were limited.  Plus, there were all sorts of incentives for money saving packages if I upgraded to the new and improved.  Well, if you have been keeping up with me lately, you know that we did get new and improved.  Now I think somebody needs to upgrade me so that I can be new and improved!