More is Less

Over a year ago, I gave up my smart phone (ok, I smashed it on a tile floor) in lieu of an old Motorola (now an LG) that allows me to send/receive phone calls and texts, as well as the occasional (read: regular) message full of twenty-five rectangular boxes instead of alien face and poop emojis (Sorry, Jenn). 

Fast forward to Christmas 2015 when I instated my own version of Cyber Monday, which means that I only use the internet  that one day a week.  There are, as you probably guessed, exceptions to this rule (finding recipes; printing GoogleMaps directions for lack of a smartphone, just like I did in college; paying bills; giving in to the absurd desire to check my email; losing myself in Pinterest “research” for the bathroom project).  If you are one of the few who know I have been doing this, you’ve likely received a message from me on Facebook or seen me like a photo on Instagram on a Friday and thought, “AHA – For all her strong talk on a technology purge, look who is weak and lacks discipline and scruples and can’t resist a photo of someone’s dog doing something amazing?  Who’s weak now??!

Me.  This girl.  Whenever I dance with the devil, he wins.

Anyway, I made the previous choices for a few reasons. 

1) My cell phone bill is now $29.58, which in a rural area (I’m looking at you, Verizon), is astonishing.  We save an obscene amount of cash from just this one change. 

2) I read Last Child in the Woods this past winter, which I recommend (bleeding hearts, you’re welcome), which challenged me to think about how much time I have “lost” (read: willingly handed over) to social media and getting distracted while doing tasks on the internet.  As Craig and I say, the internet is exactly like an online mall, with those pesky kiosk employees always reaching out and smearing Dead Sea salts on your face, even though you are loudly pretend-talking on your phone as you walk by them in order to get to the Genius Bar and back without losing your everloving mind.  What, you don’t do that? 

You will now.

3) Milo.  I have only one kid, which I feel like I am always apologizing for, because he is absurdly fun, and yet this one, absurdly fun child has sacrificed at least an hour a day in his first year and a half because I was spending 5 minute chunks of time checking to see who won 5 gazillion rubies on Jewel Thief.   This was the come-to-Jesus moment for me.  Not only am I am losing in this way of life, but he is losing.  Craig is losing.  No one is winning.  We are all losing.

And for what?

Somehow, in the case of the mall, I wholly, vehemently despise every intrusive, time-sucking, you-need-this-homemade-crystal-neck-warmer distraction, but in another, I seem to have a limitless tank to fill up with cat memes and hiking routes and the host of wildly-colored running tights that inhabit my dreams.  What gives?

Why would you waste time on the internet when there's a pile of books to run over, I mean, stuff to do?

I have bounced through life pretty passively, with abhorrence for confrontation or making waves, but I am learning that this whole time I have been living in a choose-my-own-adventure story, and I need to begin make more intentional choices, because the pages just keep flapping by while I’m not paying attention.  On a recommendation from my friend Heidi, I am partway through a book called 7, An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, by Jen Hatmaker, on – you guessed it – simplifying and being mindful, and have been challenged by an idea ingrained in both this book as well as Last Child in the Woods which is that to change our behavior is of secondary importance to changing our way of thought, but that to change our behavior is often the most important method through which we can change our way of thought.  Do I need new towels for the astonishingly beautifully bathroom we are renovating?  For a hot minute, I thought I did – or rather thought that, of course, it’s a new bathroom, so of course, we ought to have them (“ought” = entitlement, but that’s another vice for another day).  So I went out to TJ Maxx and I bought some.  And then, 4 days later, I returned them, because guess what?  I already have the perfect towels.  In fact, I’ve had them for five years, but since our latest move they have been sitting in my linen closet, waiting for the perfect time to come back out into the spotlight.

So what do new towels and smart phones and the Athleta website share in common? 

Lies.  That’s what. 

Lies, and me, a girl who has bought into them. Every lie is only as good as the person who believes it, and I have thrown myself hook, line and sinker into a culture of more is better: more stuff, more friends, more information, more recognition, and more quickly, while you’re at it.  Chop chop.

But there is a flipside.  There are a host of things that are better as a result of reducing my technology addiction.  Here are a few*.

-I figure that I have at least one extra hour each day to spend at the park with Milo, catching up on a project, cleaning, doing yard work or reading (my favorite indulgence).

-I feel less critical of myself, my parenting, and my purpose, because I am not constantly comparing myself to others.  This is a big win.

-I get outside more.

-I fall asleep more easily, because I read before bed, rather than scroll FB until ridiculous-o'clock in the morning.

-My unstructured time feels longer and less distracted because I can’t instantly grab my phone to check fill-in-the-blank App.

-Freedom from something you once felt necessary feels amazing.  Another big win.

*Unless it’s Monday, during which all bets are off, and you’ll find me liking every hilarious animal video/new baby announcement/beautiful picture on the whole worldwide web. 

As a disclaimer to all of these things, I acknowledge that I am a stay-at-home mom, and that giving up computer use, or even surrendering a smart phone is not something possible for every man or woman out there.  Also, your vices are not the same as mine.  In writing about this, my goal isn’t to guilt anyone, but to spark some healthy curiosity.  What if I could transform my thinking from a position of want to a position of contentment?  What changes can I make toward that end?  For me, a good start was to change my relationship with technology, but that certainly doesn’t need to be the end.  In fact, I hope it isn’t.  I hope it is just the beginning.

But for now, it’s Monday.   See you next week. 

Listomania

I like lists.

Like this:

Laundry

Write

Library

Post office

Optician

Store: skim, yogurt, veg.

Get eggs @ Margie’s

Dinner

Clean up brush

Family bike ride?

Chase a naked Milo

I'm waiting for Chub Scout Retrieval to become an Olympic event.

This is just a sample.  I write these almost every morning, or in the evening for the next day.  When I’m really tired and/or lazy, they are extraordinarily short or include things like brew coffee (which, is actually done by the coffee maker - check, check!) and eat lunch, and only sometimes include showering.  

My good friend Jenn, besides being a phenomenal corn chip eater and artistic wondergirl is a listmaker, like me.  But beyond the daily cataloguing, Jenn is a bucket list girl.  She makes annual bucket lists, and also makes them when she moves a new place or perhaps even visits somewhere.  Her bucket list might include writing 365 letters in a year, eating at every Thai joint in Boston or, more likely, reading a number of phenomenal books and hiking mountains.  I think she’s brilliant.

Why do I think Jenn and I like lists so much?  In my opinion, it's because we are filled with a desire for purpose.  And in a tangible way, purpose means getting stuff done, amiright?  But - and this is a big but -  accomplishing my daily checklist is not the pinnacle of living.  

The lack of adrenaline rush after crossing out Do the dishes is a dead giveaway. 

If my life is composed of list after list after list, with 365 each year for an ambitious 60 more years, that’s 21,900 lists, not including each leap year.  I might like lists, but that sounds… completely terrible.  It is essentially repetitive, it makes my soul feel heavy, and it is – correct me if I’m wrong – totally anticlimactic. 

Here’s my dilemma.  I am not a girl with huge aspirations – perhaps I’m hard to inspire, but I think probably I’m simply too indecisive, passive and easily satisfied, which are a secret Keebler recipe for generally mundane things, showcased by the list I posted above.  So why am I knocking on lists like that, and yet I’m praising the likes of Jenn’s big, bad bucket lists?  

Why?  

First off, despite their monotony, your daily tasks are not qualitatively bad.  Without them, my world might stop turning - certainly the laundry cycle would.  That, said, it's easy to get lost in the rhythm of these familiar, sometimes automatic behaviors.  The problem is, I need help.  I won't remember to go get the eggs without a note, and so I certainly doubt that I'll really go travel the world without a reminder to book the first flight.  I need the benefit of my ink lettering staring me in the face, like a glowing neon light, to beckon me to go get after it.   

I am however, suggesting something a little less explosive.

This is why Jenn’s bucket lists are such an inspiration, and why I need to write a few of my own.  If I finally get down on paper that I want to hike Mount Washington before next winter, and I have to stare at it - stare at it, stare at it, stare at it - every day… you know what?  I might actually get that sucker done.  And what makes those bucket lists so special is that the true success is not simply the accomplishment in checking the items off.  It’s part of the ploy, yes, because we are human and sometimes need a carrot to chase after, but unlike the old illustration, somehow grabbing hold of that carrot – checking off that thing - is not actually the prize.  We don’t feel the reward when we scribble through learn to swim the butterfly or cross out join a traveling carnival.  We feel it while we are chasing after the carnival.  While we are powerfully fluttering our way across the pool.  While we are huffing our reluctant body up toward the Washington Observatory.   The chase is our reward. 

The prize is the thing itself.    

So don’t quit making your lists.  I’m certainly going to keep it up, or I promise you that you’ll never come over to our place for breakfast, because I will 

never 

have 

gone 

to get those eggs.  

But beyond the daily grind, let’s do two things together.  First, let’s sprinkle some bucket inspiration onto our daily notepad, so that we remember to Paint a masterpiece with the Chub Scout or Take over the world in Risk later that day.  Second, let’s get cracking on this year’s bucket list.  There are incredible things in store for 2015 – adventure and adrenaline and hilarity and mountaintops – even for a lazy Susan like me.  So here, as a gesture of goodwill, is the beginning of mine:

1.  Hike Mt. Washington 

2.  Overnight camp with Milo

3.  Grill a really good steak  

If you want to post a couple of your bucket items here, that would be a pretty great encouragement to me.  And when the time comes that you accomplish them, don't flaunt the fact that you checked them off.  Flaunt the story.  Tell it to me, and to your friends, and to your family.  Because that's the prize.  And maybe, just maybe if you can get after it, so can we.