Leave your phone at home
Tonight, I left my phone at home.
I went to the pizza place (Hoza Pizzeria) at the corner of 15th and Franklin, in Oakland California, and ordered a vegan slice of pizza and a beer.
I was anxious, and I realized that I grabbed for my pocket at least 7 times, hoping to grab my phone.
I’m addicted to my phone.
I want to check Slack and the automated messages I’ll get from users that like (or don’t like) our product. I want to see my WhatsApp messages from my family in India, and my text messages from my sister in SF or girlfriend in Germany. I want to browse Google when I have a a wisp of a thought, and then go down the rabbit hole to research other things. It’ll make me wiser, smarter. I want to open Facebook, incase there is a cool new picture of my friends partying somewhere. I want to open Matter to see the articles that I’ve missed, so I can learn something new.
What I don’t want to do is be present.
I don’t want to see the sights and sounds and hear the people around me.
I don’t want to watch the bartender pour a beer for the guy next to me.
I don’t want to notice the IPA that he got or the music that’s playing in the bar.
I don’t want to talk to the owner of the restaurant about starting a pizzeria, or the chef about the awesome weekend she had with her parents.
Because by doing everything I was doing on my phone, I won’t do any of these other things.
So, today I tried to be present. Just for 30 minutes. It turned into 2 hours.
Initially, it was tough, but I will do it again tomorrow… because it was refreshing.
Music I was listening to while I wrote this
Electric Guest — Get Out (Official Audio)
This is day 22 of my #90DayOfProse challenge.
