How often do we just sit still and listen? Do you remember sitting by yourself in a cafe and NOT reaching for your phone? How much do we rely on staying in touch with our phones rather than ourselves?
Listening to a radio station the other day, a man in his 20’s said he went on holiday just after his phone got smashed, so he was totally lost. After all, he wanted to be able to put pictures up on social media to show he was having a good time. However after a few days, despite his girlfriend having a phone, he actually started to ‘be’ in the moments and enjoyed the holiday better by not having to give a running commentary every few minutes or hours!
My nephew, on the other hand, dropped his phone, which disabled him completely, mind you he is 18. All his friends numbers were in there so he could not call anyone. After hearing that his whole world had ended and that he continued to sulk indoors until his new one arrived, I asked him if he knew where his friends (he had since high school), lived and why couldn’t he just go round? He looked at me like how do you just turn up without messaging! I told him of the times we used to arrange to meet a certain place and time and you had to wait for the person as there was NO phone or way of getting hold of them and you had no idea if they were going to be on time or 20mins late. Again, he looked at me like, ‘why would you do that?!’ – how times have changed!
The other day, we went for a ‘breeze out/get out of our business heads’ drive to the sea and I really wanted to just sit by the sea and listen to the waves. We did for a bit plus jumped on a boat for a jolly, however it was interspersed by ‘look up’ as the phone was thrust in my face or later on ‘watch this’ as hubbie played back what he had just been filming on his phone. “Arrghh, put the phone down already!! – I just want to Be!”
Don’t get me wrong, the phone/social media, especially whatsapp has healed many a family by keeping everyone in the loop at the same time and talking without talking just to keep in touch, when you’re not really talking (if you get my drift). Plus, when asked if we wanted to put an advert billboard up for business, we opted out as many of our clients come to us via the internet.
However, the control that our phones have over us 24/7 surely has to be monitored? Can’t we just sit still in a cafe and people watch? Can we stand at a train station and just breathe deeply without checking our phones? Do we feel so socially awkward that we have to follow everyone and put our heads in our phones all the time? Even with the excuse of checking business emails etc…can’t we just sometimes Be still and Be in the Moment?
