{"id":2630,"date":"2017-08-04T10:32:02","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T17:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/?p=2630"},"modified":"2017-08-04T13:20:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T20:20:38","slug":"timely-correspondence-as-a-muscle-to-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/timely-correspondence-as-a-muscle-to-train\/","title":{"rendered":"timely correspondence as a muscle to train"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An old friend said I should call her once we moved to different towns. &#8220;Every day!&#8221; she said. I knew that wouldn&#8217;t be sustainable, but at least we&#8217;d try to connect regularly.\u00a0Every day turned into twice a week, then once a week, and then hardly at all. The same thing happened with text messages.<\/p>\n<p>I checked in with her to see if everything was alright between us. It was; everyone is just busy.\u00a0Boo hoo, I thought.<\/p>\n<p>Then I remembered all the other messages I left to marinate in my inbox. Unanswered Christmas cards, birthday wishes (some that are over three years old!), warm greetings from friends in faraway lands: each one lovely and worthy of a wholesome letter in return.<\/p>\n<p>~<\/p>\n<p>With work e-mails and calls, I am speedy. I reply within a day or two. So why don&#8217;t I extend the same habit to old friends? That mismatch in priorities doesn&#8217;t feel right.\u00a0My favorite (and most deadly) rationalization: &#8220;I&#8217;ll write back when I have the time to make a <em>worthy\u00a0<\/em>response&#8221;.\u00a0But of course, that day doesn&#8217;t come.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t complain in good conscience when I&#8217;ve left other cherished people hanging in the past. If anything, this is another reason for me to\u00a0double down my efforts in making timely correspondence a regular habit.<\/p>\n<p>~<\/p>\n<p>Reframe: Rather than excusing yourself by saying &#8220;I stink at responding to messages&#8221;, think of timely correspondence as a skill to develop, or as a muscle to strengthen. The next time an old friend slips up, throw them a bone and be gracious, just as many others have been to you.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an example I like to return to, this one from Suzanne after I neglected her message for 11 months:<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/marinade_response-e1501824852346.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3227 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/marinade_response-e1501824852346.png?resize=489%2C63\" alt=\"\" width=\"489\" height=\"63\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/marinade_response-e1501824852346.png?w=489&amp;ssl=1 489w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/marinade_response-e1501824852346.png?resize=300%2C39&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 489px) 85vw, 489px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An old friend said I should call her once we moved to different towns. &#8220;Every day!&#8221; she said. I knew that wouldn&#8217;t be sustainable, but at least we&#8217;d try to connect regularly.\u00a0Every day turned into twice a week, then once a week, and then hardly at all. The same thing happened with text messages. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/timely-correspondence-as-a-muscle-to-train\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;timely correspondence as a muscle to train&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-Gq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3238,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630\/revisions\/3238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}