We live in a crazy world where constant communication is almost expected. You send a text and you expect a response within minutes. If we don’t get this message right away, we send another hoping for a response. Our phones also have this “wonderful” thing that tells us when someone reads a message or has opened a snap. This is the way we are living our lives. Somehow the person leaving you on read is the “problem”, but in reality, that’s not the problem. Look up out of your device and see the world. Here are some reasons to give it sometime before you respond.

Live in the moment

Chances are when you go somewhere special, you are so glued to your phone,=that you forget to look around you. That message will still be there when you look back down, but that beautiful mountain range might not be. It’s okay to open the message if you want to know what it says, but you can leave it unanswered in order to look around. You could see something that makes you laugh harder than you’ve ever laughed. Truly living in every second allows you to deeply enjoy life and find yourself!

Dead Conversation

When the conversation dies, open and don’t respond. No need to keep sending emojis back and forth. You don’t need to have constant contact with someone to stay friends when them. When the conversation dies, leave the message and come back to it later! It’s okay to take a break from talking. If you take a break from talking, maybe you’ll find something to talk about! This makes for more meaningful conversations and less pointless conversations.

Become unattached

Think about how much time you are spending on your cell phone in a day. If you spend this much time doing anything else you'd be called an addict.... well the truth is... You are addicted! We constantly look towards our phone for comfort. The idea of being lost in this virtual world rules our lives. Learn to become unattached from that pocket size device. I am by no means saying ditch it all together, but you are allowed to open a text and not respond. Life isn’t about immediately giving peoples' responses. If you learn to not touch your phone as much, you will find more time in your day. When you become unattached from your phone, your life becomes more important. You learn to communicate more with the people you see because you didn’t tell them everything over text. Becoming unattached and leaving that time stamp on a message is hard, but you'll become happier with your life.

Keep yourself busy

This world is always moving and going and sometimes it gets super busy. When life gets busy, these are the moments we need to put our phones down and be okay with the little red circles on our phones. Every message you share with someone is important in some way, but when life gets busy, it’s okay to text back later. If the person truly cares about you, they will be okay with getting a text later. Keeping yourself busy in life is good. It means you're experiencing things and doing things with your life.

Don't wait around for messages. That person might be out enjoying their life and you should be too. Follow the read and go rule. Read the message and go on about your business. Respond later when you have really thought about what to say, and when you've really enjoyed life for yourself.

Also, learn to be okay with being left on read. Not getting a text back right away is nothing against you! It simply means that person has other things going on. We need to learn that in this world if we don’t get an immediate response, we wait. Waiting for a period of time is okay. Don’t ask the person for an explanation of why they didn’t text back when they come back, don’t assume what they were doing.

Just allow them to tell you if you want. Learn to be patient, let this idea teach you patience. When you get a response back from being left on read, pick it up and read it, but then put it right back down and continue what you were doing. Also, life keeps going even if you never get a response.

If you learn to put your phone down, more your life becomes more joyous. People will learn to be okay with not getting a text back from you right away, and when they do, it makes them happy. Be okay with not sending the blue message back, or seeing a box on the screen. Leaving someone on read isn’t rude, it’s just simply choosing to enjoy life over staring at a screen.

“Make yourself a priority, because at the end of the day you are your longest commitment.”