No matter what your age, it's likely that in the last few years, you've been asked to "look up from your phone" and "be present." Whether a parent, a spouse, a teacher or a child has made the request, it's always a little rattling to hear.
Sometimes we're so busy looking down at our phones and our iPads that we miss what's going on around us.
A man named Gary Turk wrote a poem - "Look Up" - focused on this sentiment, and created a video to go along with it.
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The poem starts off a little hokey (it rhymes), but the message begins to ramp up near the end; it's no wonder people have been sharing it like crazy on Facebook.
Here's what happens (you can watch the full video below to hear the full poem.)
Turk tells the story we are all familiar with. We have phones, laptops, tablets, e-readers, headphones, and we often go through life reaching out to connect with people behind the screen instead of the people right next to us:
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But what if we ditched the phone and (you guessed it) looked up at the world around us?
What if asking for directions...
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Led to a new relationship:
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Which could lead to love and marriage:
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Babies...
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And grandbabies.
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Not to mention all of the memories in between.
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Because the poem and video reminds us of something we've heard over and over and over again: Life is here and gone in an instant.
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One minute you've got the rest of your life ahead of you, and the next you're remembering what it was like to feel that way:
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And Turk reminds us that we probably don't want to look back on memories of staring at a screen. In fact, he points out, if we never put the phone down...
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We'll miss so many opportunities to make memories in the first place.
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You can watch the full video and hear Turk's poem below: