Mulit tasking seems to have become an art form despite all the studies that say our brains really can’t perform several functions at the same time. Let me rephrase that. Our brains can’t handle doing several tasks at the same time and do them well.
Still we try. All of our electronic gear makes us think we can do it all without cloning ourselves.
We can walk and text…NOT as evidenced by the video below.
Woman falls in fountain while texting
I’m glad she wasn’t outside where she could have fallen into a ditch, walked into oncoming traffic or gotten hit by a car.
Her cell phone took a bath ( not good) and she was embarrassed ( survivable) and this video has pretty much gone viral so she will never live it down. On the plus side she gave us all a good laugh.
Speaker phone is another mulit tasker tool..useful when on perpetual hold..not so useful by lazy people who refuse to hold the phone to their ear and then FORGET to tell you that you are on speaker phone and then EVERYONE hears things they are not suppose to hear. Not to mention you can hear the person you are talking to doing everything BUT listening to the conversation.
So how does this relate to Marathon Monday ( once again falling on a Wed)??
Quite frequently I take my dog to the very end of a street near our home. There are several vacant lots so its a good place to play. Since its the very end of the street no one comes down there unless they live there or are lost so there is very little traffic.
So Max and I are playing and I see a woman out for a run heading towards us. We are blatantly visible. By the way, Max is a pretty good size golden retriever..a little hard to miss. She had her headphones on and was NOT paying attention. Max , of course, as all goldens do was absolutely certain that this person would be more than happy to pet him, pay attention to him etc.
Goldens operate on the toddler rule “Its all about me, no matter what, if you came to see Jenn, you really online pharmacy came to see me”.
I was about a second too late from grabbing his collar to keep him from running up to this gal.
He conveniently became deaf to the “come” command.
She screamed..turns out she is afraid of dogs. She yelled this to me as I grabbed Max.. she continued to the end of the street (not too far) back up the road and on her merry way. I felt horrible the rest of the day. I should have had him on his leash, how stupid of me and a few other choice phrases, until I had a realization.
She wasn’t paying attention. She KNEW she was afraid of dogs. We were visible and yet she kept running towards us because she was not paying attention, had her music up so loud I could hear it clearly and she was totally zoned out much like the woman texting .
Yes I am partly to blame HOWEVER as a female runner I have a few AWARENESS rules ( awareness=common sense)
- When running alone, no matter what time of day…BE AWARE OF YOUR SURRONDINGS.…duh!
- Sometimes I run with my Ipod but I am still AWARE OF MY SURROUNDINGS ( volume down low or only one ear bud in)
- If you are afraid of dogs, cats, deer, construction workers, snakes, clowns..whatever…be AWARE and don’t keep running towards them if you see them ahead. Duh again!
- Know your route. I don’t care if its the safest neighborhood around, don’t run in isolated areas.
Next time you are trying to do several things at once step back and check in with yourself
- Are you being fully present with what’s important?
- Are you aware of your surroundings and the people around you?
- Are you doing any of these tasks well?
If the answer is no to any of these then slow down and do 1 thing at a time ( what a concept)
Or keep multi tasking and watch yourself fall into a hole while running or into a fountain while texting..I’ll be the one LMAO nearby.
By the way.. I am allowed 1 or 2 cranky blogs a year.. Guess this counts for one!