Accessories to Life

A day without my phone

Late for work. Rushed out the door. 2 minutes to the next train. Rushed through the gate. Train arrives. “Mind the gap”. Board the train. Door closes. Sh!t, I forgot my phone.

That information itself gave me a strange sensation. Should I go back to get it? Do I have any urgent tasks that I had to do today? Could I do without my phone for one whole day?

As the debate rages in the mind, I slowly tried to calm myself down. If anything is that urgent and important, I would have remembered. If not, it’s not that urgent or important after all. A day’s delay wouldn’t have made much difference, I secretly hoped.

I come to realise how much I’ve come to relied on my phone for day-to-day things. Ever since my acquaintance with Getting Things Done (GTD), I’ve externalised the whole of my stuff to my trusted phone, and do not spend time remembering what I’m suppose to do today, tomorrow, or any other day. It has freed my anxiety to remember so much that I now rely only on my phone to remember things I need to do. All I need to remember is to check my phone daily.

I guess the fool-proof system has an inherent flaw - the phone cannot run AWOL. Absence without Official leave (AWOL), where “Official” means having my conscious permission to ditch the phone.

It does remind me how our lives have come to rely on tools. So instead of us being master of our tools, the tools now become the master, relegating us to become tools of our tools.

My one day without phone actually proves to be an enlightening episode. It reminds me not to rely on my phone so much, and it also reminds me that not all things need to be done on that day. Living through life is having a robust set of choices. No phone is ok.

The corporate world practises this through compulsory block leaves for higher ranking leaders, where the head of departments are asked to take at least a 1 week holiday just to see if the department will stand on its own feet without her. Even the religious world endorses this. The Muslim fasting period serves as a reminder of those less fortunate, reminding us to be grateful of the food that’s presented in front of us.

Often, it’s only in the absence of something that reminds us the presence of the things we find most important.

Have you tried a technology fast? Just one day without phone, emails, internet, TV etc. You might find what you’ve been trying to look for. It was only hiding behind all the tools that we’ve come to relied on, waiting to be discovered again.

© 2008 shang lee . com.