“Not Interested!”
I am hard a work at my desk and the phone rings.
“Hello?”
“This is Eric with Capital One Visa—”
“I’m not interested.”
I hang up the phone. I get these calls every week. Another credit card company wanting me to sign up with a merchant account. I use PayPal and Square. I know there is no way they can match the rates I get with those companies. I go back to my work.
The phone rings again. Caller ID tells me it is the same caller.
“I said I was not interested—”
“Mr. Neighbors before you hang up. I am calling from the fraud department. We have detected some suspicious activity on your account and I need to verify some information…”
Suddenly I am very interested!
Usually a lot of assuming accompanies the phrase “not interested.”
The door bell rings and a look out the windows shows two men in white shirts and ties.
Not interested.
The infomercial on the TV screams “and that’s not all, order today and get two—”
Not interested.
Like us on Facebook and you will be entered to win a new iPad.
Not interested.
In fact, there are dozens of opportunities every day that I am routinely not interested in. Mostly based on assumptions that are often correct. But sometimes my assumptions are wrong. The credit card company was really interested in helping me avoid fraudulent charges. Those men at the door might have been police officers. We used our Ginsu Knives for many years and loved them. I now own an iPad and wonder if I really could have gotten one for free.
In fact my life is full of things that at one point I was sure I was not interested in.
I had no interest in a computer or a cell phone. Now I can’t imagine functioning without them.
I had no interest in Facebook. Now I have reconnected with good friends all the way back to my childhood and am blessed for it!
I had no interest in certain music groups or certain TV shows. My sons (we have very different tastes!) suggested I give Mumford and Sons a listen and preview a show called The Killing. Now they are among my favorites.
I had no interest when my then future wife said she had fallen in love with me (I had been burned before.) Now I am happily married to her and couldn’t imagine life without her.
Yet my first response to the deluge of offers and opportunities still elicits from me that knee jerk “not interested” and usually before I even know what I am not interested in.
It can sting too, when you are on the receiving of that phrase. I am quick to dole it out, but oh I hate to hear it come back to me.
I just received a email from a pastor replying to my inquiry about performing at his church: “We’re not interested.”
I’ll bet he is like me. I bet he doesn’t even know what he is not interested in.
What have are you interested in that you previous thought you weren’t?
Posted by Chuck Neighbors | 6 comments