I silently said, “shit” to myself as I frantically felt around in my bag and couldn’t find my cell phone in any of the usual places I store it. I tried to convince myself that maybe I dropped it in the main part of my bag by accident and that I would find it as soon as I sat on the subway. Yea… that didn't work. I knew exactly where it was; at home. I was not looking forward to spending an entire day without phone.

Of course, this is not the first time I have left my phone at home in a tither of distracting thoughts about the upcoming day/week, but it’s not frequent that I do it. In fact, it’s so infrequent that it happens once maybe every two years. With that being said, it can be nice to be disconnected every now and then. There’s something very freeing in knowing that you don’t need to immediately respond to every buzz and ding that comes from that little glass, metal and microchip prison.

The idea of having the freedom to be disconnected for a day leads into a bigger thought on how connected people are all of the time. Think about it; when was the last time you went more than eight hours without your phone? When was the last time you went more than two or three hours without it? We all feel the need to be constantly connected to our devices. Though it’s not our devices that we really feel the need to be connected to. What we can’t break away from is the constant tie in to work, social media, current events (social or not), etc. The phone is just the enabler that connects you to the goods whenever you need a fix.

My question is, when did we get like this? When did it become acceptable for people to need to respond to emails or comments automatically? So immediate that it causes a conflict when it comes to being connected to anything else; friendships suffer, family commitments suffer and anything else you want to do suffers.

Technology and communication this instant is a very recent invent. As little as 20 years ago, this did not exist. The only people who were this constantly connect were high-level government or military officials, important doctors and maybe some high-level executives. People who were important and needed to be constantly connected were the only ones who were.

I hate to break it to you, but you’re not that important. And that’s a fantastic thing that you should celebrate!!! Unless you are President of the United States, an emergency room doctor, or Beyonce, there is no need for someone to be able to reach you constantly. And there is no need for you to have to respond to people right away. By people, I mostly mean work. 95 percent of us have no need to respond to an email from our bosses or professors the moment it is received if it’s “off hours.” Like I said, you’re not Beyonce, so chances are, your response can wait a day or two without causing Armageddon.

The takeaway here is not a how-to guide for surviving a day without a cellular crutch. Instead, the takeaway is a comment on how connected our generation feels the need to be all of the time. The “work/life balance” line gets harder to define every time you answer a work related email at 3:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. What is the reward here? What are we gaining by sending frantic emails about preparing for a meeting three weeks away over a weekend when we could have a face to face meeting about it 36 hours later? What is going to change in those 36 hours that is going to forever change the course of humanity?

Of course, I write this with a good amount of a bitter tone, but that tone is used as a means of you identifying the absurdity in some of the practices that are becoming more and more commonplace. Life is short and some days are way too beautiful to miss by being constantly addicted to the technological equivalent of a cigarette. Do yourself a favor and turn yourself off now and then. Tell the grid it can go f*** itself until Monday and enjoy your you time. After all, you’re whole reason for success is to have a happier life, so start now by actually experiencing life.