ArticleCorner Journal 📝

Together, But in Different Worlds.
Today, I went for a walk through the city. I noticed that almost every coffee shop was packed. The tables were full, people were sitting together, and at first, it looked like a nice picture. I thought people were meeting, talking, and spending time together. But then I noticed something.

Many of them were not talking to each other. They were looking at their phones. Two people could be sitting at the same table, yet both were busy with their own screens. At some tables, one person was talking while the other was looking at a phone and barely paying attention. Honestly, I found that a little sad.

If someone has taken the time to sit across from you and talk, don't they deserve at least a few minutes of your attention? To me, it is not only about phones. It is also about respect. It feels like we have become so busy watching other people's lives and showing our own that we sometimes forget to notice the person sitting right in front of us.

Everyone seems to be trying to be seen, to be liked, to show what they have, where they are, what they are doing. And somehow, while trying to show our lives to everyone else, we may be forgetting to actually live them.

Later, I visited a shopping mall. It was crowded too. People were walking from one store to another, carrying shopping bags, looking at new clothes, new phones, new products, new things.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with shopping when you need something. If I need something, I buy it too. But buying things simply because they are fashionable, because someone else has them, or because we want to impress people has never really been my way of thinking. If you need something, buy it.

But buying something just to show it to others... I don't know. Maybe I am a little old fashioned.

I have simply never been comfortable with the idea that our value should be measured by what we own. After leaving the shopping mall, I wanted to visit a cemetery. The difference was striking.

It was almost completely empty. A short while earlier, I had been surrounded by crowded streets, busy coffee shops, phones, shopping bags, conversations, and noise. Now there was almost complete silence.

That silence made me think. On one side, life was moving at full speed. People were talking, shopping, taking pictures, checking their phones, and rushing from one place to another.

On the other side, there were people too. But they no longer had anywhere to rush. They no longer needed to catch up with anything.

Standing there, I felt a strange sadness. We spend so much of our lives chasing things. A better phone. A nicer home. Better clothes. More money. More attention. More likes. More followers.

But in the middle of all this, how much time do we actually spend living?

Looking into the eyes of the person sitting across from us. Having a coffee without checking our phones. Really listening when someone is talking.

Choosing not to buy something we don't need. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing and simply looking around. Maybe life is not as long as we imagine.

And perhaps one day, while the city is still crowded, the shopping malls are still full, and the coffee shops are still busy, someone will walk quietly past a stone in a cemetery with our name on it. When I left the cemetery, I felt a strange sadness.

Not because the city was crowded. But because we seem to have become so distant from one another even while surrounded by so many people. Maybe we should show a little less. Buy a little less.

Look at our phones a little less. And live a little more. Because life is not something we watch on a screen. Life is the person sitting beside us.

Maybe it is time to put the phone down and look at them. Life is happening beside us. Don't miss it.

ArticleCorner Journal: Life is made of little moments.