My daily two hour tech break is about meet the one week goal. I’m so intrigued with the results thus far that I’m going to see how many days I can actually keep it up before I fall off the iWagon. In truth, my wagon runs off Android.
To my incessant surprise, I have genuinely enjoyed each day of tech turn off time. However I have noticed one issue that simultaneously grates on my nerves. I have become excessively congnizant of how shut out and irritated I feel whenever someone else continues to tech away instead. It’s utterly unfair on my part.
This was a challenge I set for myself and my kids. I had hoped that my husband would be all in, and considering that it wasn’t his idea, he’s had a pretty good participation rate. The problem is that I don’t do “pretty good.” I’m all or nothing. Do or do not. There is not try. You’re my boy Yoda!
But it’s an unreasonable and unfair ask on my part. I have been much worse than him for years. Now a handful of days have gone by and my epiphany has not managed to totally invade his conciousness. No big shocker there. He didn’t ask for this. He’s a smart guy, so I would suspect that his primary goal for playing along in the first place is keeping his wife’s nag factor at the lowest possible level.
And he isn’t the only one who keeps teching away when we are having family fun time (that’s what my kids call it and they don’t even say it with snark – that’s a win in my world). My dad doesn’t even know about tech turn off time, but my frustration with him is more general in nature. If you are hanging out with your children and their family, can’t Facebook wait? Can’t you bitch about politics and share pictures of skateboarding dogs later?
Once again, this is an extremely unfair of me. I’ve spent countless hours on a phone with my kids right next to me. I wasn’t at all focused on them, and if I would ask my dad to please stop that, he absolutely would.
We often hear how the characteristics that frustrate us with other people are the very aspects of ourselves that we dislike the most in ourselves. I see myself mirrored in these actions, and I know that I’m bothered that I can’t undo all the time I already lost.
So I guess my ultimate spiritual revelation from day 5 was this – I need to shut up and get over it. Focus on me. Let them do their own thing. Remove the stone from my own phone before tackling their speck yada yada yada…
Momentum of Joy 