I'm still at the conference center with no cell service, using my 'turned off' iPhone. I can't send texts, and I can't make calls unless I use Skype or What's App. It was incredibly frustrating the first couple of days here -- perhaps, even more frustrating than when I went in to the AT&T store with my big news that I was switching back to a flip phone! I was excited about the experiment and took all the challenges in stride because I was trying something new and was expecting frustration. But, when I arrived at the center and realized how difficult communication was going to be, I wasn't a very happy camper!
As the time has passed, however, I have become less anxious and unhappy. Not because I am adapting so well to the situation, but because I am too busy to be on the phone at all! This has led to the realization that perhaps we have become habituated to pulling out our smartphones because we are not fully engaged with what is going on right in front of us. Think of being in a movie theater, for example. After the endless 'trailers' to the feature movie, there's always the screen that comes up instructing everyone to turn off their cellphones. That has always slightly irritated me, even though I understand the reason for it. Once the movie has begun, however, I am so totally engrossed in the story, the plot, the action, the sound and the images. I never even think about taking out my cellphone. How crazy it would be to break my concentration on the movie by starting to scroll through email on my iPhone! For the time of the movie, I am in a space of timelessness -- fully engaged in what is going on in front of me.
I wonder how things might change if we were able to engage life like that every moment. It It seems to me that we might being more single-focused. When eating, we would eat. When walking, we would walk. When we needed to talk on the phone, we'd talk on the phone. And, I think we would be less tempted to mindlessly pull out a smartphone every time we were also doing something else. So, perhaps, the real problem isn't my iPhone, but my lack of mindfulness.
As the time has passed, however, I have become less anxious and unhappy. Not because I am adapting so well to the situation, but because I am too busy to be on the phone at all! This has led to the realization that perhaps we have become habituated to pulling out our smartphones because we are not fully engaged with what is going on right in front of us. Think of being in a movie theater, for example. After the endless 'trailers' to the feature movie, there's always the screen that comes up instructing everyone to turn off their cellphones. That has always slightly irritated me, even though I understand the reason for it. Once the movie has begun, however, I am so totally engrossed in the story, the plot, the action, the sound and the images. I never even think about taking out my cellphone. How crazy it would be to break my concentration on the movie by starting to scroll through email on my iPhone! For the time of the movie, I am in a space of timelessness -- fully engaged in what is going on in front of me.
I wonder how things might change if we were able to engage life like that every moment. It It seems to me that we might being more single-focused. When eating, we would eat. When walking, we would walk. When we needed to talk on the phone, we'd talk on the phone. And, I think we would be less tempted to mindlessly pull out a smartphone every time we were also doing something else. So, perhaps, the real problem isn't my iPhone, but my lack of mindfulness.
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