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SELF-INFLICTED

 
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
 
 
The dance, the juggle, the genuflections of organizing our day …
 
For as long as I can remember, every day in my adult working life has been a collage of appointments, slips of paper, reminder-systems of manual and for a few decades now, the electronic conflation of everything I might ever want to be reminded about …
 
It never takes a day off. Sure, I can delete some things and delude myself temporarily that I can manipulate my time vis-à-vis everyone else’s needs. It’s impossible, as we all know, to get through any day without a self-imposed sense of urgency these machinations impose upon us.
 
Yet, on beaches, golf courses, ferry-sailings, and flights everywhere, people are device-less or at least connection-less for a while. I think, like my fellow boomers, we somewhat fondly recall a time of being less connected, of being less-reliant on those connections, that state of being ‘always on’ and always connected. Our younger peers have been on a faster treadmill of connection and devices than we’ve ever embraced.
 
But what does it mean to step back, or aside, or out of the fast-lane for a few minutes? We can all do it, but we don’t. We are media addicted, social-media addicted, device-addicted, and we seem to have an appetite (this has been COVID-fed too) or the need for more of it. Faster and faster, eliminating the number of things we need to think about and increasing thumb fatigue …
 
Where is it going?
 
Where are we going?
 
Is there room on this merry-go-round for all of us? 
 
The more we need and use technology to run our lives, the fewer decisions we make with our brain – and the more vulnerable and less private we become every day. Yes, we want to be more productive, make fewer blunders, waste less time, and manage every process better.
 
But sometimes, we need to take a day off. Or a few hours at least.
 
Go ahead, try. Turn off your phone, computer, TV, radio, i-devices of all kinds, unplug, detach, and disconnect. Most of us can’t go for an hour, let alone a day, in disconnection land.
 

Reader feedback:
 
FOR RICHER OR POORER
Right on Mark, right on!, LK, Calgary, AB

Or as my mother-in-law used to say “if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything”. Happiness would include a few other things. LH, Lethbridge, AB




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