Answer when your mom calls, even if it’s just to say you’ll call back. One day that ringtone stops.

A call is somebody picking you out of their whole day. Declining costs nothing in the moment, which is exactly why it is easy to do a hundred times without meaning anything by it. The supply is not infinite, though nobody knows the number, and that is not a reason to live in dread. It is a reason to make picking up the default instead of the exception.

Answer once this week when it is inconvenient. Thirty seconds is a complete conversation: you are alive, you love them, you will call properly later. That is usually all anybody wanted.