It's A Beautiful Day To Ignore The Day

It's a Tuesday, late afternoon. The sun is glowing. The birds are certainly chirping and the breeze is a-blowin through the trees and the moss dangles in wisps throughout the branches. But where are you? Where am I? Where are we all? Probably inside, completely ignorant of the beauty that is happening outside our doors with or without our acknowledgment. And we're probably on our phones.

Txt Me Back

Does anyone else cringe with this new weekly report from our trusty iPhone that lets us know just how much time we averaged on our device that week? I do. Every time. And it was such an accomplishment to see that I went down 4 hours from the week before last week. Four hours!!! What even? That is whack that I could even go down that much, that there was even that much, to begin with. I think that we have forgotten how to sit in silence and think, to look around and take in the surroundings. We fill to gaps with apps on our phones instead. We fill the moments we wait for people to text us back with "scroll time" rather than "me time". Rather than look outside and sit in the shade and drink in the fresh air.

Safety Net

I think that our phones have become our safety nets, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I ever feel uncomfortable walking alone to my car, I can whip out my phone and call my mom or my sister and feel a sense of security through being on a call. We use our phones in awkward situations. We use them to locate each other and to make sure everyone is safe. This is all so so so good! But I think we also are using them in circumstances where there is no problem, no emergency, no discomforting scenario. We are learning to be dependent on them. And though it's not all bad, I challenge you to take a walk outside next time you find yourself mindlessly scrolling over the same Instagram feed for the 12th time that hour. Look at the trees and at the birds that fly by you.

Break up with your phone for a sec. You might be less bored.