Lisa notes

THE SOUND OF FRUSTRATION

From my recliner in the living room, I could hear the older plumber sighing in our kitchen. He and his partner were here installing a new faucet, and his mumbling under the sink was a little disturbing.

When he came up for air, I decided to do the neighborly thing and check in on him.

And for good reason. Earlier that morning, Jeff mentioned he’d heard that one of the plumbers—an older guy—had smacked his head so hard on a cabinet at an earlier job that he had to be taken to Urgent Care for stitches.

So, naturally, when I saw the two plumbers who came to our house—a younger man and an older one—I was smart enough to connect the dots.

The older man looked weary from the first moment he walked into our house. I was concerned that he had returned to work too quickly after his injury.

He’d been through a lot!

FROM CONCERN TO CONFUSION

So I asked him, “Are you feeling okay?”

He said, “Yes, I’m fine.”

I then asked, “Do you need anything to drink? I’d be glad to get something for you.”

He seemed a bit surprised by my offer, but he politely declined and said again that he was fine.

THE PLOT TWIST

Even though I was refused, I still felt good about my small act of compassion. I later told Jeff that I had checked in on the plumber, making sure he was okay after his rough morning.

Jeff looked at me, amused. “That’s nice,” he said, “but that’s not the guy. The one who cut his head didn’t come here.”

Oh!

That’s when I realized I’d been fussing over the wrong man, someone who had no idea why I was acting so concerned about his well-being. He didn’t know I thought he was the injured plumber.

GET THE STORY RIGHT

In my defense, I wasn’t wrong to be concerned. I was just working from incorrect assumptions.

Isn’t that how it goes sometimes? News is passed along to one person, then another, and somewhere along the way, the facts shift either through miscommunication, misinterpretation, or faulty conclusions.

By the time the last person hears it, the story might be barely recognizable.

I learned a lesson that day: double-check the facts before jumping to conclusions. Ask more questions.

And maybe let the plumbers work in peace.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

“There is nothing permanent in the world except change.”
– Heraclitus

I’ve working this month to make final edits on the answers for my Storyworth memoir that I began last year.

Here is question #28 from it. I wonder how you would answer it:

How is life different today compared to when you were a child?

This is my answer:

One of the biggest differences I see between life today compared to when I was a child is this: Instead of having to go out to interact with the world, the world now comes to us.

• We can see and talk to people in our homes while they are physically present in their own homes instead of having to literally put our bodies in the same location.
• We can shop at stores from home and have the items arrive on our front porch instead of driving to the mall.
• We can look up any information from home (or wherever we happen to be) by pulling out our tiny phones instead of having to go to the library to look it up.

Now that AI is easy to access on everyone’s computers, it’s said that things are going to continue changing even more. I am just now learning how to use AI and am amazed at what it can do.

Is the world better with its digital connections and information? In many ways, definitely yes. In other ways, maybe not so much. We’re already seeing both positive and negative effects from technology. It’s still too soon to tell the long-term effects that it will have on humanity.

Nevertheless, pending a major disaster, there’s likely no turning back from the massive changes that have already occurred because of computers and the internet.

And I can’t even imagine the ones still yet to come.

How is life different for you from when you were a child? Share your thoughts in the comments.