I’ve never sent a text message before in my life. I realize that in today’s world this sounds unbelievable or bizarre but there are three important reasons why I’ve never done it and never will.
1. Situational Awareness – How many people do you know that walk around with their head down texting every chance they get? How many times have you been stopped at a light and the guy in front of you was clearly texting and you had to honk at him to let him know the light had changed to green?
The fact is, most crimes are crimes of opportunity. The crack-head looking for the easy score is going to approach the person whose head is down looking at their phone instead of having their head up. Also, even though I always carry a gun, knife and tactical pen, it’s not going to do me much good if my head is down giving some guy the opportunity to hit me over the head with a lead pipe or stab me with a knife. Having these tools to defend myself are useless if I’m not aware enough to see an attack coming and therefore don’t have time to deploy one of them.
The bottom line is, most of keeping yourself safe in life comes down to paying attention to your surroundings and texting is a criminal’s dream because it makes people easy prey.
2. Time Management – I’m all about using my time productively. I’m able to get a lot of work done, to dry fire every day, and do training because I don’t text all day or immediately run to the phone every time I hear a “ping” sound. If someone needs to get a hold of me they call me and we quickly have the conversation we need to (instead of texting back and forth forever) or they email me and I respond when I get a chance.
Needless to say, many people claim to not have enough time in the day to train or to dry fire with their handgun. If they stopped texting, I imagine they could replace that previously unproductive time with training time that has a much higher payoff in the long run.
3. I Think – Many of us are turning into robots who cannot even make a decision without consulting our smartphone. If you can’t survive without your smartphone then you’re not going to do too well if things get truly bad in this country.
As the quote from the movie Fight Club goes, “The things you own, end up owning you.”
Now, there are lots of other reasons I don’t text and don’t own a smartphone, including that people store way too much personal information on their phones that could be easily hacked. But, the main reason is for safety purposes and to keep myself from getting distracted.
Just remember, you may be the world’s best gunslinger, but if you don’t see it coming and you’re caught by surprise it probably won’t matter.
