Unplugging

I missed a day. But in a really really good way.

I was challenging myself to write a blog post every day and I still very much intend to keep that challenge, but another challenge came into my life.

My father, step-mother, and I were sitting around talking yesterday. The topic got on technology and how much we depend on it. They had been considering cutting their cable for the summer and I told them that, as much as I hated it as a kid, having only three channels (and that fourth channel that if you squinted hard enough and stood in just the right spot in the living room) was one of the best things my parents could have done for me.

I know that this is an issue we all face. As I was telling them about the "evils of technology", I couldn't help but note that twinge of hypocrisy rising up in me. I am certainly not the best example of a technology-free life. I am on my laptop a lot and often need a movie or show running to fall asleep to (I hate it, but it's true). But, the more we talked about the implications, the more ideas began to take shape. As we all know, it's not that technology in itself is bad, it's just amazing how much it dominates everything that we do. I pulled from one of my favourite books, Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" which talks about living a better story. It says that it is impossible to live a good story if you are too busy watching someone else's. It's a simple statement, but a powerful one, and one that I'm sure you could unpack in many different ways.

All of this culminated in an agreement to start small and see where that goes. We decided to cut out screens every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That means no Xbox, no TV, no Internet. Obviously some of these things are more tempting to certain people, but it's all about the solidarity. This literally means unplugging the chord which controls all of these things (quite convenient really) for the day.

Monday was our first test. I definitely entirely forgot and checked Facebook first thing in the morning. Oops. But once upstairs I was quickly reminded and the knowledge that my father was going to suffer more than I was was a big encouragement. It was a busy day to begin with, but it is AMAzing how much more you can fit in a day when you're not flipping open the computer every once in a while just to do a quick check. I wouldn't say I'm a drastic over-user of the Internet, but I couldn't help but notice what a huge difference it made yesterday. The biggest change came at the end of the day when we were all sitting around after supper. With no Xbox to run off to for my stepbrother and no TV to flick on for the post-supper digestion, we sat in baffled silence, asking ourselves... Now what? It was entertaining in that sad and pathetic kind of way, watching ourselves react to this seemingly unique experience. In the end we settled for a board game--which turned out to be quite entertaining--and an early night; who knew having to be creative all day took up so much energy?

This is a challenge that everyone makes at different times in their lives, and I think it's a really important one. Like I said, there are certainly good things that come with the Internet so I don't think it's something to throw out the window all together, but there is definite power in limiting it in your life. I'm incredibly interested to see what the next couple weeks or months is going to look like with all this free time on our hands. This means that my blogging schedule will return to being somewhat inconsistent, but since I consider working on my writing part of my "job", I will try to remain as consistent as possible.

Wish me luck :P