The Harder Way

Please don't misunderstand me - the choices that I make about how I am connected (and not connected) in my life are not easy ones. They don't make my whole life easier. Most of the time, these things make my life harder. 

It's harder to stay connected to some persons when you don't answer their messages right away. Sometimes, they feel slighted when you don't "like" their post (because you didn't see it). Sometimes, there are friends or family or coworkers who will send me what the world would consider an "urgent" message on social media, and it can be hours or even days before I see it. 

It's harder to have to plug my phone into my computer, enable file transfer, browse through a folder, and upload a photo that I want to share. It's harder to screenshot my runs for my running group and have to do the same thing to share my progress. It's harder to have to turn on, wait for the boot up, and log into a physical computer to shop online, to refill a prescription, to manage a profile, whatever. 

It's harder to hear everyone talking about something they are all seeing on their phone - breaking news or local gossip or weather alerts or what have you - and have to wait until I get home to see something for myself. (But I love weather, and I'm a trained storm spotter for the NWS, so if you're talking about weather, I've got windows. I'll just go look out one.) It's harder to not be part of the conversation. 

And, by the way, I've never been on TikTok. If you're trying to talk to me about something you saw on TikTok, no. I haven't seen it. And I probably never will. That is mindlessness and distraction at its best, and it's not doing anyone any good. 

But it's harder. It's harder to live a selectively connected life when the whole world, it seems, is plugged in. In the book I referenced on Monday (which I still recommend you read - Reconnected by Carlos Whitaker), Carlos was surprised when he arrived at the monastery and discovered that even the monks had phones. Even monks were carrying the whole world around in their pockets. 

This is what we have come to. 

But we don't have to. 

And we're not better off for it.

These devices we have, this technology - it's good for some things. Don't get me wrong. But it doesn't make our lives richer. 

In fact, it takes us away from the things that truly fulfill our lives. With these devices, we don't have to wander...or wonder. We don't have to speak or listen. We don't have to engage or pay attention. If we miss something, we just rewind it and play it again, but this world is full of once-in-a-lifetime moments that we'll never get back, even if someone out there caught it on camera and posted it. 

Take the latest total solar eclipse. That was a moment! It was breathtaking. And there's not a single picture that does it justice. Not one. The only reason we like the photos is because it reminds us of being in that moment and takes us back to our own memory of seeing it...except that there were so many persons who were so busy photographing and posting the eclipse that they neglected to look up and actually see it with their own actual eye, not through a lens. And let me tell you - it was so much better without the lens. 

This world is so much better without filters. 

So no, it's not easy. It doesn't make my life easier. It makes my life harder to choose to live the way that I do, to choose the relationship with technology and connectedness that I've chosen. 

But it makes my life richer. Deeper. More vibrant. More wonderful. More amazing. More incredible. More full. 

Because I'm actually living it. 

And that's something our phones will just never be able to do for us.