What about me?

It could be the fact that I was an only child that contributes to this overwhelming sense of self-importance that I tend to place on myself.

Or it could be that each day I am constantly reminded, in a number of different ways, that I just really am not significant.

Of course I'm really not talking about myself as an individual. Rather, what I am referring to is this suffocating sense that I have developed in my working life that everyone's stuff is way more important than my stuff. I have a hard time accepting this. I don't think my demands are that unrealistic. I want to believe that there is as much importance in what I do for my students in class as what others do for theirs. Yet, it is that constant, stinging reminder that I might not be just as important as I think...

This experience tends to demonstrate a microcosm of a much greater societal issue -- we all live in our own bubble and that bubble is becoming increasingly smaller at a rapid rate. For most of us, we are caught in a tangled web of technology that has provided us with an invisible digital barrier bound by the fibers of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other forms of social interaction. What a tangled web we weave. How I long for the 20th century. The email inbox that once confounded us by demanding our attention with a little "ding" is now just readily accepted as something that must be done frequently, daily. Like bathing.

We have lost ourselves in the digital personas that we have carefully constructed by adding our friends, commenting to others, sharing our accomplishments and the like. These high intensity technological demands we have placed on ourselves, both as a society and as individuals, has led the decay of empathy. We are no longer able to relate to each other, in spite of being closer than ever.

So I will try not to take it personally. I will continue to consider the needs and demands of others doing what I can to make sure that we can both co-exist peacefully. I will work, learn, and live each day hoping that someday we will all seem to be aware of what each of us is doing, place value on it, and respect it for what it is.