Enough!

I have started to realize recently that there is a real significance in giving yourself to the moment for the task at hand, whatever you may be doing. I'm beginning to think the only way to truly enjoy what you're doing, who you're talking to (or listening to), and really any moment that you're in, is to be present in it with minimal distraction. So that means, even when I have committed my evening to something as embarrassing as watching The Bachelor (sidebar - does everyone else love Nick? Is that just me? I used to not be able to stand the guy but he's really turned around for me- end reality TV tangent there), that I am fully immersed in The Bachelor. Because every time during those 85 minutes that I pick up my phone, open a message in Facebook, or look up something on Google, I am taking myself out of a moment that I curated especially for my relaxation, enjoyment, and unwinding after a very long Monday. And that's not really fair to me (the exception here is texting my friends who are also watching The Bachelor, because that definitely heightens my enjoyment of the madness).

Obviously - it's going to be 100% different from the other 85 seasons!!

When I'm driving that is actually my ultimate chance to unplug from the world that lives inside my phone and just beyond it, because it's so unsafe to do anything with your phone on the road. Driving should be about looking up at tree branches for owls, learning from listening to an awesome podcast, enjoying a ray or two of winter sunshine, and occasionally keeping your eyes on the road to make sure you arrive at your destination safely. When I am with Jeff, time that is fewer and further between these days while he travels for the majority of weekdays this fall and winter, I want to be fully present in those moments. Whatever is distracting me can wait. I recently learned a new fake word – "phubbed" (phone snubbed). This refers to a situation when you are with another human and instead of being with you, talking to you, and interacting with you, they are on their phone. And this is a common theme I'm starting to hear from many of my friends and colleagues- the irritation when they are the person who spends less time lost in another world, but it is their partner, or good friend or whomever they're hanging out with that has allowed themselves to become lost.

So, in the spirit of this I am making a vow to put down my phone a little more often. If I'm out for dinner, my phone will be in my purse and not on the table (unless I'm waiting for someone who is late to get there who might need directions or more information!). When I am committed to enjoying a blissful hour of TV in a busy day, my phone should be fairly well out of reach so I can actually enjoy that moment. I stopped receiving text message notifications through my headphones while I'm listening to podcasts while walking the dog, because Bailey, and I, deserve that time outdoors to just enjoy that time outdoors in the healing power of being near trees (even if they are mostly little trees in our relatively new subdivision).

For a while now I have been living without most notifications on my phone. The only thing my phone is allowed to bug me about (like it's a sentient being? jesus..) is when I have a text message (in truth, the way I correspond with most of my friends and family these days), a phone call (seems like a notification for phone calls is probably wise), and an alarm that I've set to remind me to do something as I am so forgetful. Everything else can wait. That means that my phone is not dinging from the marathon Facebook Messenger conversations I have going on with several different groups of friends – which I love, but I would likely throw my phone out the window if I heard a little buzz or ding or saw a notification pop up every time I message was sent in one of those - especially since a common message is a thumbs up (urgent stuff, obvi :)). It doesn't make a peep when somebody likes or comments on something I've posted. It doesn't say a word when any of the seemingly million stupid apps I have on my phone have something new/exciting/"revolutionary" to share with me. I don't even get automatic updates about Leafs scores, and instead rely on text messages from Jeff and Julie who will always be watching the game even if I'm not. :) I don't want to be a slave to the world that lives behind my phone or computer screen. I want to tap into it and enjoy it on a timeline that works for me. What I'm recognizing as I write this is the real problem is I'm probably in there way too often and I should actually make some physical distance between myself and my phone when it's not pertinent that I find out the latest scoop. And how many times in the day can somebody look at the weather anyways? So if I'm not traveling somewhere why am I checking the hourly forecast seemingly almost hourly in a weird obsessive need to know what's up with the weather!?

Turns out, winter is still cold and wet...

I feel like some of my habits, like the pleasure I get from deleting unimportant emails, responding to new emails, responding to text messages, and making all those little red 1's and 2s and 10s go away has started to become addictive. I hear that the reward centers in your brain light up like a pinball machine when you see you have new interactions through whatever channels you choose to interact through, and the dopamine response actually becomes addictive. As we all know, there are enough things I'm addicted to, I don't need my tiny hand computer to be another one of them. There's too much beautiful stuff to see, life to live, wonderful people to interact with (in the old-fashioned way that we've always interacted – with eye contact, and conversation) to spend another minute wondering just what's happening on Facebook or in my three (count 'em three, including my work email on my personal phone... baaaaad!!!) email inboxes. So in my world of no notifications, with my resolve to stop being a human notification myself and hearing the 'ding!' in my own head if it's been two hours since I checked my phone, I hope I can make some strides towards going back to living my life a little bit less electronically, and in a less hyper-connected way.

I'll end this blog with a link to an article (long read but worth it if you have 5-10 mins) that I found last year that I really enjoyed, and hope that maybe it will inspire some of you who are feeling like slaves to the notifications, the world behind the screen, and the flush of dopamine that just feels so good. http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/09/andrew-sullivan-technology-almost-killed-me.html?mid=twitter_selectall&mc_cid=c3df321426&mc_eid=4359458b80