We've heard it said in creative ways like "stop and smell the roses" or "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". These sayings go back centuries, so being caught up in life and work is no new ailment. But lets look at HOW it applies to our lives today. How many of us (guilty) grab our phone when we have a few minutes of down time to check our various social media updates? How many of us (guilty) google every possible piece of information we need from how many quarts in a gallon to "who was that guy that played in that movie with that girl?" We spend hours on our phones looking up new ways to cook meals, new ways to decorate our homes, new fashions to wear to work/school, new diets to lose the weight we probably have put on by sitting in front of a computer/ipad/iphone/iwhatever else ya got all day googling new diets. We pay bills on our phones, we send kids money on our phones, we make appointments on our phones, work on them, play on them, plan on them, waste time on them, read, write, on and on and on and on. We are dependent. Some days I get so caught up in virtual life that I miss things in real life. My eyes have a hard time focusing because they are constantly scrolling upward as fast as my thumb can scroll. I told myself yesterday that today was going to be a day of mental rest. No facebook, or instagram, or Pinterest, or evening news... nothing connected to the internet. And here I am. Image, if you will a day unhooked from anything internet related. Can you do it? Where would you start? If you are like me you couldn't do anything requiring money unless you already had cash in hand. Most of us wouldn't be able to listen to music because our collection now consists of downloaded tunes (hopefully legally downloaded). You could go work on that project (carpenter, quilting, sewing, gardening, remodel etc etc) as long as none of the plans you were using came from the internet. Lunch- no recipes from Pinterest with food you hopefully already have in the fridge due to that cash situation. Can you spend a whole day just turning off the electronics? At the risk of sounding all "conspiracy theorist" I am going to go one step further. We are always hearing about our carbon footprint. But have you thought about your electronic footprint? From the moment you wake up you are leaving an imprint in the electronic world. Do you use your cell phone as an alarm? How about Alexa? Does she know more about you than she should?
I say all of this not to degrade the usefulness of the internet. But to bring to light the importance of turning it all off now and then. Some days my mind gets so cluttered with gunk I get from a 3x6 screen that my head literally hurts. By the end of the day I am irritable, cranky and overwhelmed with more information than I needed.
So, this morning I took a drive out to a wildlife conservation area near my home. I left my phone in the truck and I found a nice quiet place to sit. And for about an hour I just sat. I took in the smells, the cool breeze blowing, the sounds of birds and fish jumping out of the water. I took in several deep breaths and it was as if my brain was decluttering itself. It gave me a renewed feeling. I could feel all the stress from the day before slowly leaving me. For a time I even closed my eyes and let my other senses take over. Words like "healing" come to mind for my short visit there. My mind needed healing. My emotions needed healing.
Now here I am... challenging you. Turn it off. Find your place (don't google it) for healing. Read a book, go for a walk, sit in a quiet room, have a cup of coffee with a friend- because you may be able to look up pictures of beautiful roses on your phone but you can't smell them. At least, not yet anyway...
