Holiday digital diet
Newsflash: I’m going on a diet this holiday season. Starting tomorrow. And it has nothing to do with restricting food!
Instead, it has everything to do with reducing my time with technology.
This diet will last indefinitely through Christmas this year, and who knows?! Maybe even beyond that. Here are my rules:
- If I’m talking to you in person, my phone is away.
- No more than 20 mins on social media every day. Regardless of whether or not my total time is under that, can’t check it more than 3 different times in one day. (Ideally 2.)
- PHONE IS ON SILENT AND OUT OF SIGHT during breakfast/lunch/dinner.
- NO CHECKING MY PHONE IN THE CAR… only exception is answering a call.
- Three picture max at any event.
- All xmas shopping will be done IN PERSON! No looking at phone while waiting in line. Amazon, I love you, but I’m actually excited to see how this plays out.
- Electronics off after 9pm! (Ideally 8pm.)
I know what you’re thinking… Why in the world am I doing this?
Simple. I want more quality, more love, and more meaningful experiences in my life this holiday season. I do not need “easier” or “more convenient”. I want more time with family and friends in person. FULLY PRESENT. This is literally the only time throughout the year that I barely have any soccer! In the short window of time that I can give considerably more attention to the people I care about most, I’m doing it.
I am still hungrier than ever to learn. With this being post #11, you probably know that by now. But I know that I need to set boundaries on when/how much I allow myself to take in. (Hello, “Messy & tangled” post from 11/9!)
Reality check: pursuit of wisdom & knowledge is a lifelong journey.
Confession: I’ve been getting caught down the rabbit hole on Instagram far too often.
There are so many incredible people out there that I admire and want to learn from!! However, there are also so many incredible people RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME that I admire and want to learn from. In that regard, this diet is merely a shift in focus, presence, and kindness.
In the grand scheme of things, this digital detox is nothing. Phone calls, texting, podcasts, iTunes & this blog are not going away. (Although me publishing posts at 1am will be going away.) More than anything, this will be a gut-check to squashing mindless distractions during “down time”. It might be easier to say no to Instagram or Facebook altogether, but that’s not realistic. Those are still powerful places to connect, and I don’t want to get rid of that. Also, I need to be able to handle the test in balance.
Having a genuine moment/conversation/time with someone else… or fully enjoying the peacefulness of nature… or simply embracing natural stillness – will always be better. Ultimately, I don’t need to know what the entire world is doing on a surface level. You read my post relating to “The Inner Ring” – this is a great opportunity to ensure that I’m authentically prioritizing attention to my inner rings. Theory is a beautiful thing, action is far more impactful. And that is why I’m starting this diet.
So for this next month… less Google, more phone-a-friend is what I’m saying.
Better yet, more quality time IN PERSON!
Anyone with me on this?!
Have any ideas for consequences I can implement to hold myself accountable?
Feel free to reach out.
And now, an eclectic mix of goodness to share. I don’t know about you, but I got a little crazy on Black Friday… that’s right, I ordered five new books on Amazon. [Go ahead and just insert nerd emoji here…] Between plenty to read and some really interesting podcasts this weekend… I’m sharing some longer excerpts & quotes this time around.
I. From the book “Finite and Infinite Games” (A little over 30 pages in, but super thought-provoking.)
“Although it may be evident enough in theory that whoever plays a finite game plays freely, it is often the case that finite players will be unaware of this absolute freedom and will come to think that whatever they do they must do.”
…
“To account for the large gap between the actual freedom of finite players to step off the field of play at any time and the experienced necessity to stay at the struggle, we can say that as finite players we somehow veil this freedom from ourselves.”
…
“The issue here is not whether self-veiling can be avoided, or even should be avoided. Indeed, no finite play is possible without it. The issue is whether we are ever willing to drop the veil and openly acknowledge, if only to ourselves, that we have freely chosen to face the world through a mask.”
…
“At which point do we confront the fact that we live one life and perform another, or others, attempting to make our momentary forgetting true and lasting forgetting?”
– James P. Carse, “Finite and Infinite Games”
II. Can’t believe I didn’t know who Tom Bilyeu was until yesterday. HIGHLY RECOMMEND this podcast, with a side of walking Burke Lake Park… speaking from experience, should time out perfectly.
“People should be driven by beauty and rage, not in equal measures – it’s so much cooler to say equal measure – but it really should be like an 80/20 split, right? 80% of your time should be focused on the beautiful things you have and the beautiful things you want to create. But 20% of the time should be rage for not being good enough, for the f—head who slighted you, for the people who don’t believe in you. And I think that it’s incredibly useful as a human being, to go, ‘That person doubts me, and I’m gonna prove them wrong, and it is gonna be delicious.’ And to just revel in that. And to know. But if you spend all of your time there, then you’re Darth Vader… you’ve given in to the dark side.”
…
“Think of the last time that you were enraged. Like f—ing enraged. Got it? Alright. It’s intoxicating, isn’t it? It’s beautiful. It’s purity, right? Because now you’re not gonna stop. A part of your brain that assesses risk and reward, fear, insecurity, it shuts off. It’s gone. There’s none of that. There is only blind, unadulterated rage. It is movement in one direction, it is attack. It’s full f– ing speed. It’s I don’t give a s— what happens, I am going to ruin you. Oh my god. Like a fireball of death. And it feels so good and people don’t talk about how clarity feels good. Clarity feels good. Clarity is intoxicating.”
…
“But when you give in, when that is your dominant emotion, when that’s the dominant thing that motivates you, you’re Darth Vader, right?”
– Tom Bilyeu, on Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth podcast
III. And finally, another brilliant individual that I didn’t know about until this past weekend…
“Can’t you just ask for something rather than make a judgment on the entire person? Because criticism is a veiled wish. Behind the criticism there’s actually something I want from you, but I have a way of asking it in such a way that guarantees I’m never gonna get it….. Because it’s less vulnerable, than to put myself out there with a request and say, ‘You know it would mean a lot to me, when I ask you this, that you would do this.’”
– Esther Perel, on “The School of Greatness” podcast