Last week, I flew to Ft. Lauderdale to speak at a criminal law seminar on the topic of cross examination. I arrived Thursday before noon and got checked into the hotel. I went to the gym and worked out. After I went back to my room for a shower, I realized that I needed to get some Diet Coke to stock in my room for my three day stay. I used my phone to locate a nearby store and got up to leave. Then it hit me: the hour was getting late, I had dinner plans and would be out for several hours, and my phone had little or no charge left.
I had to decide what I would do. I either had to take my phone with me and chance losing my charge while I was at dinner, or I had to leave the phone on the charger and go to the store without it. This was a very hard decision for me. At first, I was very reluctant to leave my phone and venture out in a strange city without my digital security blanket. Finally, I decided that I was an idiot and left my phone charging in my room.
I felt as much unease as I did freedom as I ventured out into the unknown. I was untethered from the rest of the world and out of contact with anyone that wanted to get in touch with me unless they happened to be walking down the street in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It gave me time to think.
I tried to remember what the world was like before I had a cell phone. I thought about the old times when the way to call someone when you were out and about was to stick money in a payphone and hope they were at home or near the land line you were calling.
I found that the feeling of being without a cell phone before there were cell phones was hard to remember even though I had lived almost 30 years before I even had a cell phone. Then, I wondered whether my 17-year-old son had ever even used a pay phone.
Amazingly, I made it back to the room without being accosted or having an overriding need to make a phone call. My phone was fully charged and it remained charged throughout dinner and until I returned to my room for the night.
As I said above, my initial reaction to this chain of events was that I had issues that went beyond my need to charge my phone. Upon further reflection, I decided that, phone attachment issues aside, what I need to do is take care of making sure that my phone is charged at all times. Before this column is printed I intend to have a battery pack of some type to carry to make sure my phone is charged at all times. Problem solved.
In life, we have to recognize our problems and shortcomings and strive to get beyond them in a meaningful fashion. Sometimes, that is as simple as changing the way we think about things. Sometimes, we need a little help from our family and friends. Other times, we just need to go to Best Buy and part with some hard earned cash. That is what I am going to do.
We can’t solve every problem we have with the acquisition of material goods. Some we can. The importance is recognizing which is which. Being able to recognize those things that can makes life much more tolerable, even for those of us way up in the CHEAP SEATS!
Bill James is a co founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, Arkansas where he practices exclusively in the are of Criminal Defense.