Good morning friends. It has been awhile since I grabbed my fresh cup of coffee, sat by the fire, and had a conversation with you all.
This is undoubtedly something I plan on changing in the new year. More writing, more listening, more conversation. We have so many new followers to the blog recently, and what you don’t know is that we used to do a lot more writing and musing in and amongst the outdoor practicals. Like this post and this post. I hope to do more in 2018.
I find myself contemplating the real reality of rest this morning. Probably due to the week we had, lets just say the words, “stomach bug.” I’ve spent nearly every hour of the last 3 days indoors and on the couch. My friends on Fitbit can attest. I’ve grown deeply thankful for 3 bathrooms, porcelain toilets and while I love our Airstream, I am grateful we aren’t in it this week. 🙂
New ski clothes from The North Face and we couldn’t even use them this week!
But anyways, are any of you feeling permanently exhausted. Emotionally exhausted?
I am coming to think much of my exhaustion is from this wonderful thing called social media. Now I am not usually a nay-sayer in that realm. I’ve met amazing people and made amazing friends entirely over social media. Like these friends below:
Play date with Jess from CurrentlyWandering.com and Jessica from BringtheKids.com.
And these:
The Koob family and us in the Bagaboos. RockiesFamilyAdventures.com
And this friend:
My friend Kristen from BraveSkiMom.com
But at most points during the day I have 5-10 conversations going on at once! One of them might be my daughter asking for a help with a writing assignment, but most of them are via email, Facebook, Instagram and a few other work outlets. I mean sheesh!
Are we as humans meant to multitask like this?! I just don’t know anymore!
Last night I was multitasking once again, grocery shopping with my tween daughter and trying to tackle her earnest question of when she could have her own cell phone. And why she couldn’t have one already and “mom, really, what is so bad about a phone?!” I deserve a medal for this. And I can’t be held responsible for the mish-mash smattering of groceries that ended up in my cart.
But it made me stop and process through the real reason I don’t want my kids to have their own cell phones – it takes them away from what is real and in front of them and into a digital world of half-real things. And the digital world has made it super addicting, super attractive to be fully immersed in that half-real world.
But it is the real people, real relationships, real trees, and breeze, and air that refreshes and renews us. Ground us. Tethers us to reality.
I am beginning to believe real rest is found in what is real.
I don’t want my kid’s time and energy and imagination and relationships sucked into the vortex of the digital age. Not yet. Not when I can still stop it.
And so what does this mean for me? For us? I’d love to take the moral high ground and claim it doesn’t affect me the same way. But it does. It does for all of us.
And I can honestly see a time when a phone will be in her future as she becomes more trustworthy and independent, able to head off skiing on her own, babysit, and other such things…
I don’t have an answer to this, but I’d love to hear yours.
These are the things I have done so far:
I’ve turned off all my push notifications.
I’ve stopped sleeping with my cell phone in the same room. (Something I’d highly suggest.)
Take those digital relationships and bring them into the real. (See above photos.)
I silence my phone for most of the day, often missing calls because of it…
I’ve stopped tracking everything, including exercise on my phone. This is hard cause I am doing the 365 Mile Challenge, but a Fitbit does help me estimate my mileage.
I’ve tried and failed to set boundaries on how much time I spend online.
I know the whole social-media-fast-thing is a… thing, have you done it? Did it help you and how?
Tween wanting a cell phone! Yes. I am right there. My answer is the same as yours. No not yet. Social Media Fast. Yes I have done that for about 4 months. I did not miss anything. It has slowly come back into my life but not in the same way. My phone is always in silent. No notifications at all unless it is a reminder I set up. I check regularly for important calls. I try to be intentional and present with what I am doing. It isn’t perfect but possible to keep real connections real.
Oi. This is a hot topic in our household too. Unfortunately the reality is there is no pay phones, so you can’t just give your child a quarter and send them on the way knowing that they can reach you if they need to. We’re making a distinct differentiation between a cell phone and a smartphone. In the near future, our son will get a cell phone. A basic, old flip phone that has call/text features for getting in touch with us if he wants to make plans, needs a ride, etc. It’s going to allow him to have the freedom we took for granted to go to the library, swimming lessons, etc. It’s a quarter in the pocket. It’ll also be his phone to call friends etc as we don’t have a landline. Our smartphone stance is different – when you’re making your own money and can afford the cost yourself (if he’s holding down a job and maintaining his grades, we figure he’ll be mature enough).