It’s Saturday morning and I slept in until 4:45AM. No walk today. I took a look at my list I made last night of things to do today and I have no idea how they will all get done (they won’t). I’m now behind on six letters of correspondence. My son’s birthday is Tuesday and I need to put his package together even though the USPS still probably won’t deliver it on time if it gets mailed today. (I just realized it’s been 4 years since I’ve seen my s☼nshine and 6 years since I’ve seen my daughter!) Where does the time go?
I recall back before I started working from home ten years ago, when I could spend my days writing, cooking, and cleaning … um, yeah, okay so I didn’t do much house cleaning, but writing and cooking was my life. I remember when I would reach out to people, they never had time to talk or respond because they were too busy. I couldn’t understand how everyone could be so busy to not have time to respond. I made the mistake of saying out loud, “God, maybe one day I’ll be so busy I don’t have time to respond”. Be careful what you wish for, or what you say to God because He listens.
Therefore, this brings me to today’s Empathy word: Engage. I promised to visit other blogs—and I will eventually. Too many times I see blog hoppers jump from blog to blog with a little generic template that says “here from A-Z, good luck with the challenge, blah, blah, blah”. Maybe that’s okay for a lot of people but I’m not going to do that. If I’m going to take the time to visit, you’ve taken the time to write it, I’m going to read it and at least make an effort to comment about what you wrote. As I’m writing this post today, I’m convicted about the template life has become.
Templates are something I use in my life daily at work. I have a whole folder of “Empathy Templates” for every situation that comes up. You know what the worse part of that is? It’s what our world has turned into. Even our daily life. I remember when I first moved to South Carolina from Maine and would watch the local news. I would freak out because every single night there would be a report of a shooting. How could that be? That never happened in Maine. Tall Cool ☺ne would say, “Happens all the time, you get used to hearing it.” The sad part about that is he’s right. We fall into the products of our environment.
It’s easy to get caught up in templates, generic responses. I do it all day long at work. People can’t pay their bill, there’s a template of how I understand what it’s like to be strapped not having the money to pay bills. People report a death, there’s a template how I understand because I’ve lost a loved one too. There’s a template for everything and I don’t even have to engage in what that person is really going through. It’s heartbreaking because this is what our world is now. We don’t have to engage because someone or something (Alexa, Siri…A.I.) has taken the time to put every response together for us. Do you know what I mean?
How many times do you send a text message and the person responds with a thumbs up or a heart or my pet peeve is prayer hands. (I think that is a templated response that too many people use and really don’t even pray.) Instead of me going off on a tangent I’m going to end for now. I need to engage in my Saturday morning list of things to do. Things for you to ponder: The next text or email you get, how can you engage instead of sending a templated response?
See you all here on Monday with F-words.
Cheers,
CRACKERBERRIES 
I haven’t thought about how much we have templated our lives… Thought provoking.
Ronel visiting for A-Z Challenge Everlasting Life & My Languishing TBR: E #AtoZChallenge2025 #Books #Bookreview
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Interesting post – I’ve never even thought about templates of response. I think I’m exceptionally lucky because most of my exchanges with people feel engaged.
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Did you get everything done, Barbie? I use templates to save time, when sharing my A to Z and other repetitive posts on social media. It’s good to have friends, who are prepared to show their real feelings.
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I do use those emojis sometimes but mostly to my kids, which I think is fair because they do it to me. I don’t do much house cleaning either if that makes you feel better.
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I enjoyed your thoughtful post. I’m wondering about the “stopping by”comment. Is it better than no comment at all? Surely they wouldn’t put in a comment if they didn’t read the post? Of course the best comments are when they specifically refer to an item in your post but that’s very time consuming. We are getting more and more AI suggestions which makes it harder. With the hands, can they also mean thank you? The person using them may not be praying.
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I know I’ve been guilty of the quick comment on the A-Z, but initially I start with 50+ blogs to read. Over the first week I cull that down and hopefully will have time to comment a bit more fully. I promise to stop using the thumbs up as much as I do – for me it’s the requisite “I read your words that don’t need a response but I want to acknowledge that I saw them”. LOL!
Donna: Click for my 2025 A-Z Blog
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I know what you mean about the template life/response. I have pretty much the same philosophy you have. Same lists done the night before. My goal today is to do one thing on my list and then do another. I stop frequently to look or go outside and find good things to see. I write pretty much about only the good things. The good things are what I try to engage in. And this post was a good thing.
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