Slow Down and Count Your Blessings

By Kyle S. Reyes, Director of Marketing for Carter Chevrolet and Mazda of Manchester

We're all moving at a million miles per hour.  Technology has advanced to the point where replies to emails and texts are expected immediately.  Look at the iPhone, for example.  Text another iPhone user ... and your phone not only shows when it's delivered, but when it's READ.

Our teams at Carter Chevrolet and Mazda of Manchester live and breathe by technology.  They've got their phones at their sides 24/7 to make sure to respond to customers - and coworkers - within seconds.

We're a little crazy.

Actually, we're a LOT crazy.

Think about it.  Our grandparents' generation didn't email.  They didn't text.  They didn't Tweet or Facebook.

Heck, they weren't even always able to CALL.  They did something much more wild.

They wrote love notes.

Which brings me to the point of today's blog - love, and how sometimes we need to slow down and appreciate it.

This Saturday, I'm marrying the woman of my dreams.  We're going to escape on a romantic honeymoon and I'm going to (GASP!) leave my laptop at home.  

I won't be blogging.  I won't be emailing.  I won't be Facebooking.  (Ok, maybe that last part is a lie.  But I will try and avoid "checking in" at the suite.)

I realized last night that my generation has spent more time falling in love with moving too fast than it has with falling in love with actual people.

While my fiancee was working her butt off trying to knock out some last minute wedding planning, I was responding to work emails, texts and phone calls.  When she asked me a wedding-related question, I snapped a little and said "God, I can't wait until next week when all of this stress around the wedding planning is DONE."

Really?  I can't wait until it's done?  This day is going to be one we remember for the rest of our lives...and look back on wishing we could re-live.  And I'm anxious for it to be over?

So ENOUGH of the technology.  ENOUGH of being so caught up in life that we forget to live it and enjoy it.

I'm going to end this blog with a modern day "love note".  I hope you can tolerate my digital mushiness for a minute.

Dear Quinn,

As we prepare to say our vows, I promise to love you and cherish you always.  I promise to try and live every moment with you in the same way we've lived those moments that have captured our memories.  I promise to appreciate every second together.  I promise to appreciate you and treat you like gold until I'm old and ugly.

I vow to not tag you in unflattering pictures on Facebook.  

I vow to not tweet my frustrations in those rare moments when we may fight because I forgot to rinse the sink after brushing my teeth.  

I vow to not Yelp at our reception.

I vow to not "check in" during romantic moments and change my status to "bow chicka wow wow".

And I vow to not Skype the delivery of our babies one day for the world to see.

I promise to live in the moment...and not in my cell phone...all the days of my life.

Love,

Kyle

PS - I'm secretly hoping she scored me some Google Glasses as a wedding gift.  Shhhhhhhh.....