i - Issues

I've developed some clarity around my relationship with my iphone on vacation this week. It's not pretty. 

I am addicted to it. Simon and Anthony are rolling their eyes and saying "Well, duh!" But at least now I can admit it. I turn to my phone in any empty moment...a lull in conversation, TV commercials, stopped at a traffic light. I'm certainly not saying I'm the only one, but what I am saying is that I don't like it.

I think the phone has changed me. Prior to having it, those empty moments would be time with myself in conversation with the world, not in some kooky way where I'd chatter with the trees or prance through fields of daisies but those moments would be little bits when my brain actually did something. Thought about something or even just idled but in a way that's different from a game of solitaire, checking my work email, or scrolling through social media platforms.

Social media. Yikes. I realize that when I look at Facebook, I slowly start to feel bad. With every swipe of my finger, as irrational as it is, my brain starts saying things like "why aren't you doing that, why don't you look like that, why is everyone else so happy?" I know that Facebook is a curated collection of users' best moments and that the non-satisfactory aspects of their lives are not posted, but I feel insecure, doubtful, and generally crappy when I use it.

So I removed it from my phone. But that doesn't really solve anything. I've been checking my work email while on vacation this week and those little creeps of bad feelings come in then too. Until yesterday, I found I wasn't at all relaxed or checked out of the office. I really needed to be. Being halfway involved wasn't giving me what I needed or achieving the purpose of the break. So as a baby step, I looked at email twice during the day yesterday, not 47 times. I felt bad about not replying to messages from family, but had to force a break from the constant feeling that I needed to be present for work. Newsflash, they're FINE without me and when people who send me email receive the out of office message, they're FINE not hearing from me until next week.

They're small changes but I really want to try to fix this. Fill those minutes tethered to a device with moments attempting to understand the actual world, not a streamed, electronic version that isn't reality at all.