Life is hard; it’s busy, it’s cluttered, it’s fast when you want it to be slow, and way too slow when you want it to be fast. One way or another, we all can find ourselves caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life - often feeling tired and defeated, as a result. It certainly makes sense the anguish that comes at the hands of the rat race, the pace is neverending! Whether it be the drone of a nine-to-five commute or studying day in and day out for unrealistically expectant exams - let alone every conceivable social tension under the sun, modern humanity places itself under some serious stress. Yet, why is it that at the end of the day the first thing turned on is the television? Aren’t we all spending enough time staring at screens while we work or study?

Answer: According to a Nielson report, within the first quarter of 2016, the average American spent 10 hours and 39 minutes a day staring at a screen.

The fact is, it’s just so damn easy to sit back and “veg out” with spare time, as oftentimes we find ourselves so mentally tired after a long day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an effective way to truly unwind. Staying inside and staring at screens may offer something of a temporary distraction from the stressful nature of everyday modernized life, it certainly is no means of escape. Plain and simple, there’s no digital escape from a digitized life. Humans weren’t genetically designed to sit around staring at screens all day. It’s easy to forget that the fast-paced industrialized world of today is not the same one mankind was first introduced to - we were first placed into the natural world. Humanity wasn’t intended to sit around all day staring at screens, worrying about mortgages or exams, we’re supposed to be outdoors - exploring and experiencing the world!

Now, before you dismiss all of this thinking it’s nothing but a bunch of preachy-hippie-dippie literature, hear me out. Take a second and think about that old Kansas song, Dust in the Wind.

“Nothing lasts forever, but the Earth and Sky.”

Yes, that song is marginally depressing, I agree, but take it for what it’s worth. There are far, far, faaaar bigger forces at play than that rent payment coming up next month. Stare at a mountain, or the ocean - hell, immerse yourself in any facet of nature long enough and you’ll realize nothing in this hyper-stressful contemporary world really matters. It’s incredibly hard to be worried about quarterly reviews at work or the midterm coming up while completely immersed in the natural world. I mean, who honestly gives a shit about retweets or likes when you’re in the middle of a national park, or sitting on a beach, or hiking down a wooded trail. In the grander scheme of things, we as people are but, “a drop of water in an endless sea.”

The thing is though, the relative insignificance of our lives in the grander scheme shouldn’t be depressing at all, it should be empowering. Again, at the end of the day, what do all of these societal concerns and stresses mean in the bigger picture? Prehistoric man was worried about death on a daily basis, and here we are worried about not being able to shop at Whole Foods on our paycheck?

The simple solution I’m getting at here is that of finding an actual escape. No, that doesn’t mean an hour of the Travel Channel and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Go outside, explore and find that special place that makes you happy. For me, it’s anything near the ocean. Having been gone for three months now, I can say with confidence that watching wave after wave roll in on the beach will absolutely never get old. Once you too find a place to call your own, you’ll find all the day-to-day superficial worries disappear into the vastness of our world.