Staying Connected

Maxis (one of the giant Telco in Malaysia) splashed its wrap-around advertisement in the print media on Thursday. I do not quite like the buying of advertisement into the front page of the newspaper.

The four-page advertisement features four personalities using Maxis services. The front page is a young girl staying connected in facebook mobile and instant messages. Next is a young mother staying connected with family yet still need to keep a little space for herself by keeping children and husband quiet with cartoon channel on Maxis TV and Golf Alerts. It's followed with a young executive using the ultimate phone backup, receiving emails and browsing on mobile broadband and finally, a young man finding places, sharing pictures and keeping in touch with Bridge Dataroam.

It's the connection. Maxis says it all.

Does just staying connected means much to relationships?

I am a Maxis loyal user. Even my two children have each a supplementary line from my number. Recently, my teenage daughter has asked whether she could have a "Digi" line citing the reason that Maxis is for people in business because it's expensive. Rachel does not spend much on her phone bills, say RM10 plus a month. I could not see the reason she feels it's expensive and for doing business only.

She said, "Friends do not want to reply my SMS because it's very expensive to text to Maxis from their Digi."

It's more than staying connected - forgiveness, living in peace, showing respect, exhortations, refraining from vengeance ... needs a lot of efforts. I know, I have to be intentional about all these besides just "staying connected".

One of my blogger friends, bkworm shared this "Returned to Sender" so touchingly -

In February this year, as I was browsing along the aisles of a supermarket in Singapore, I received an SMS. It carried sad news. Nori had passed away suddenly. Nori who wasn't much older than me had died of a stroke.

I still remember the wave of cold that swept over me as I read that sms. A million 'should haves'ran through my mind. I wasn't much a friend, was I? All those years of card sending amounted to nothing because I didn't actively pursue that friendship when a 'Returned To Sender' was stamped over a card, foolishly believing that all those earlier cards I sent were sufficient to 'keep in touch'. I should have tried to contact her earlier. I should have made that effort. I should have but I didn't and now all that are left are regrets.

And that is a difficult thing to live with.

We all have many "should haves" in our life. However, there are two relationships that we should always count on, work on besides just staying connected - relationship with God and relationship with people we are determined to love - and no matter what!