You’re about to leave your house. You grab your keys and your wallet. You do a quick scan to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything important. Nothing comes to mind, and so you decide that you’re ready to go. You get in your car and drive away. It’s only when you arrive and see everyone sitting with their phones that you realize that you did indeed forget something. You forgot your phone.
So what do you do? Do you race home and grab your phone? Or do you try to get through your day without it? When this happened to me the other day, I made the decision to go without it. After working at Disney World at an attraction where people would lose their phones everyday and then act like it was the end of the world, I always thought that this would be impossible to do. Fun fact: I survived, but it wasn’t easy.
The first thing I had to do that day was go to breakfast at the local diner with my mom and brother. Shouldn’t be too bad, right? I didn’t need to mask the fact that I was eating alone by mindlessly scrolling through my phone. I could engage with my family. What I didn’t count on was that they would be sucked into their phones as well. I know the older generation tends to put a lot of the blame of using cell phones at the table on millennials, however, being the only one not on my cell phone at the table, I was able to notice a lot more of what was going on around me, and there were a lot of people, from all generations, on their phones at the table.
Having made it through breakfast, we left for church. This was an easy thing to get through, since I don’t use my phone in church. I know there are people who use their Bible apps, but since my church is a little more old fashioned, I use mine on my ipad (which was dead on this particular day, so I actually opened one of the pew Bibles), so I’m not accused of being on my phone, or distracted.
However, after the church service was a luncheon, and I was stuck with the same problem from before. At least this time, it was a little less, since most people at my church really only see each other that one time.
Finally, I was able to be reunited with my phone. Guess what? The world didn’t end. I actually didn’t miss anything. Instead, I found myself more in tune with my surroundings, and I felt as though I were more engaged. I didn’t feel the need to constantly check my phone to see if I was missing something happening.
Reflecting back on this experience, I think I might forget my phone a bit more often. I challenge you to do the same thing as well.
