I will be embarking on a trip abroad very shortly and I have decided that for the duration of my trip I will abstain from email.  My goal is to not check my email even once.  No reading any emails as well as no writing any emails!

This may not seem like such a big deal, but my trip isn’t a short one, and to venture a guess, I would say that for many of us the longest period of time spent without email is at most a couple of days.

Since mentioning this goal to my girlfriend (she is also going to make the same attempt) I have been reflecting on why it is so difficult for us to “get away”.  Are we afraid that we might miss out on news we can’t live without?  That someone might not be able to reach us (OMG)?

The same excuse is usually thrown around as the reason why we have to check our email, texts, or voicemail.  In case of an emergency, we want to be reachable!  Well, I don’t buy that excuse at all.  There are ways of ensuring that in case of a real emergency we are still reachable, and yes I will still be reachable on my trip.  Though you may have to go through my family to find me!

I have traveled abroad fairly extensively and I have always made numerous stops at Internet cafes to check my email.  I know it will be tough, but it’s a challenge that I’m looking forward to.

I am hoping to cleanse myself from staring at a computer all day, checking my email a million times, and visiting the same few websites over and over again.  I will let you know how it goes, but in the meantime I have to check my email!

A young Pakistani man bought the house next door to my parents’ house.  His parents came to stay with him for a period of a few months, and during the course of their stay, my mother met with this young man’s mother on several occasions.  They mainly came together for an afternoon tea and a few hours of discussion.

My mother and this Pakistani women developed a friendship and when it came time for her to return to Pakistan with her husband, my mother mentioned that she would be going abroad to Switzerland.  She promised to send her a postcard during her trip.

While she was in Switzerland, my mother did remember to send the postcard and didn’t think anything more or less than when she sent anyone else a postcard from abroad.  A week after returning to the Unites States, she received a call from the Pakistani women.  She had the following simple words to share:

“Thank you so, so, so much.  You made me so happy…”

It took a short while to write and send this postcard, but the effect that it had on another person was immeasurably greater.  It turns out that this Pakistani women’s own mother had died a short time after she returned home, and had been feeling utterly and completely full of despair.  She was able to do exactly what I mentioned towards the end of my last post: she took solace in one of the small details of her life.  She was able to let a simple postcard from a faraway friend, bring her happiness.

I don’t know about you, but this story really moved me, and is a powerful example of how amazing life can be, if we only let it.  This women certainly did- in a time of absolute personal darkness, she was still able to garner happiness from her friend’s greetings.  We can never know what will happen when we follow up on a promise or take a few minutes to do something for someone else.  It just might make all the difference in the world, and for this Pakistani women, it sure did.