It's been a couple of months since I've been using the app and I feel like I'm getting better at keeping in touch with people. Not just in terms of calling them more often but I feel like it has made me a little more caring towards them. Earlier, I would reach out to people only when I was bored or when I needed something from them but now I call/ message them just to check in and see how they are doing. The conversations feel much more relaxed and genuine. If you think about it, when you call someone with no expectations but simply out of love and care for them, there is no pressure on either side. It helps you both open up more and have deeper conversations.
People usually have a lot going on in their lives. Everyone goes through their ups and downs. There have been times when I've called friends and found out that they had been feeling really low or stressed about something. These are things people don't usually post on Facebook or Twitter. If I didn't check in, I would have never known what they're going through. I'm just glad I could be there to support them when they really needed it.
We often think about doing big things in terms of changing the world and helping those in need through charity and stuff, and I think we should still do all of that but sometimes we forget about little things we can do for people around us. Just be there for them. It's one of the smallest big things you can do.
That's my grandma. She passed away today at 85. I lived with her for the first 15 years of my life so I was really close to her growing up. I was quite a trouble maker as a kid and often got yelled at but she would always protect me and comfort me. She loved me unconditionally. As I got older, life happened, situations changed and my priorities changed too. My friends, my girlfriends, my career became more important. I started spending less and less time with her. I got to a point where I would see her just once a year on my annual trip to India. Last year, I was in India and I went to see her only on my last day there. She wasn't keeping too well. She was complaining about how I never call her but she was like, it's ok! I understand you must be busy. I felt terrible because I was really not that busy. As she was lying in her bed, I gave her a little kiss on her forehead, held her hand and I told her I'd start calling her more often.
A year passed by and I had not called her even once! But meanwhile, I had started working on Bond. She was the first person I wanted to start keeping in touch with and I was really looking forward to it. I was in India last month and I went to see her again. She was really suffering this time. She couldn't eat, she wouldn't talk to anyone and she had gotten really weak. It was really sad to see her like that. Couple of weeks later, our app was ready and I had setup reminders to call her every week. But now, she was so weak that she couldn't even talk on the phone. I was too late! Today she passed and I wish I could just tell her how I really meant to call her more often.
You have three different ways to Bond with people right now. You can either call them, text them or send them a Facebook message. The best way to get started is to start keeping in touch with people that you're really close to. Your family and your close friends.
You should already have these people in your phone contacts. In the app, if you go to the Phone Call option and give the app access to your phone contacts, you will see all your phone contacts listed. Go through the list and select all the contacts you want to keep in touch with. Once done, hit the Schedule option and set the schedule for how often you'd like to be reminded to call each one of them. You know your schedule and if you know when the other person is usually available to talk you can customize your reminders accordingly.
This would be a good start but you may also have contacts on your phone that you don't call that often but rather just text. If you want to start keeping in touch with them too, you can go to the Text Message option and select those people and again, for each contact select how often you'd like to text them.
Now, if you're really motivated, you may want to get back in touch with everyone you like and care about. Although, you may realize that some of them are not on your phone contacts but you have them on your Facebook! In that case, go to the Facebook option and select those people and setup reminders to send them Facebook messages to keep in touch with them.
It was my 30th birthday. Looking back at the last 30 years of my life, I felt nothing but thankful for all the people that I had met and all the interactions and experiences I shared with them. What I realized though, is that I was no longer in touch with a lot of them just because we don't go to the same school or college any more, live in the same city or work at the same company any more. These were all the people that I was really close to at one point and then situations changed, we went in different directions and got so consumed in our new lives that we just completely lost touch.
I decided to change that. I tried setting up reminders on my phone for every person I wanted to keep in touch with but it was really tedious and wasn't effective at all. I started looking for other apps that could help me do this better but I couldn't find anything. I mean yeah there's already Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and all the new social networking apps that come out every day but I couldn't find anything that would regularly remind me to keep in touch with people I choose to.
As I started talking to more people about it, I realized it wasn't just me. It was definitely a problem others were facing too. So I put together a small team and we decided to fix it. The result is Bond. Our only goal is to make it really easy for all of us to keep in touch with people that matter to us. We've taken the first crack at it and we're quite excited to share the first version of the app with you.
Have fun bonding with people and keep in touch!