Vacations are great, relaxed disconnectedness is damn near impossible.
Smartphones are the culprit.
Vacations are the easy part, getting ones mind to get away is a task that is usually more difficult to achieve.
This is what I’m getting at…….So many of us who are stuck on these jobs will wait all year for this dream vacation or even a little time off if even that much only to find that upon their return that they really didn’t enjoy themselves after it is all said and done.
I noticed that this was beginning to happen to me in a small way, and the reduced capacity for enjoyment when doing something completely different and away from my usual schedule began to baffle me, so I began to address this mystery in my deepest of meditations.
The answers that came to me explained what was going on not only with myself from what I could see but with many other people to whom I’ve crossed paths with in my daily walk.
This is what I learned about this phenomenon…….I discovered that because of the accelerated amounts of information available to us in this modern day high tech world has thrown off the natural balance of engagement and rest/relaxation.
…….as much as we think we are now connected because of this technology, that’s how far off we’ve become in being disconnected to ourselves without ever really knowing it until it’s too late.
Due to the fact that many years ago – for those of you who are old enough to remember – when we got away on a vacation we REALLY got away! We didn’t have the gadgetry to send instant messages to our loved ones and we had to literally wait for that morning paper to report YESTERDAY’S news as opposed to having access to the instant progression of world events as it happens down to the minute!
This in fact “keeps us connected” in a way that won’t allow us to truly become absorbed in our trips and getaways. When we are physically gone away to a distant land we are worried about what is transpiring back home and become glued to our smartphones, tablets and laptop computers to keep the information coming in to flood our brains with all things trivial.
The sad part of this is that we don’t realize that all year long we fantasize about that wonderful time off yet seem to be in a daze when we finally arrive there because our minds never came along with us in the first place!
How sad!
And I began to notice that many people that I observed even when home are not all there in the moment because of their addictive need to keep up with something that at the end of the day really doesn’t affect their lives at all!
But not only that, but this electronic way of “peeping in on the Joneses” gets many caught up emotionally with envy when they get to see how much “better” their co-workers are living and even eating!
We begin to question our own lives and what we are doing wrong because we may not have what the others that we see on Facebook might possess.
So, instead of living our own lives and being appreciative for what God has blessed us with, we move about the earth feeling shortchanged when in fact we have so much to be thankful for just to merely be alive.
So here you are frantically touching the screen on your smartphone on an exotic island in the Caribbean pissed off at what your next door neighbor has just purchased in the form of a new car when in fact you are not even speaking to them in passing!
I believe that back in the old days before all of this modern technology that even though the overall life expectancy was so much shorter, most people got more out of life than they do now because their mind, body and soul was definitely synchronized with their life!
With so many tasks removed from the old way of living that now has left us fat and lazy, we have in essence removed the healthy “roughage” out of our lives that has now left us psychologically constipated. There was a time when there were no refrigerators to keep our food, either we salted them down to preserve them for a time or we had no other choice to get everything fresh!
There was a time when we had no other choice BUT to retire to slumber, we had no electricity and did everything before the sun went down, this kept us ALL synchronized!
There was a time when we had to open our mouths to share our thoughts and express our feelings directly to an individual as opposed to shooting them an e-mail, text message or status update. We didn’t have the destructive “comfort” of sitting back disconnected behind a keyboard.
Computer keyboards are the modern day shields from which many a coward hides behind.
There was a time when the act of infidelity was the forbidden “Mission Impossible” that took sometimes YEARS to bring to sinful fruition when now a quick anonymous ad on a free website will bring in countless offers to indulge in the freakiest acts without one risking their reputation, status or marriage until getting caught.
We are so far removed from what our Creator wanted for us and we continue to run hard toward an unsynchronized life as though it is so superior to that simple unrushed existence that will keep or minds from traveling down the path of the insane.
There is so much that we have allowed ourselves to become bombarded with and we just don’t know how to keep the massive floodgates of information closed in order to gain some type of connectedness to our inner selves before beginning our days.
First off above all things, we have got to have ourselves TO ourselves before anything else enters our minds as our day begins. No smartphone. No computer. No phone calls. Just peace and quiet and a plan of what is needed to be accomplished for the day barring an emergency.
You must resist all temptations or efforts to take you out of your plan because at the end of the day, the time lost that could have been used to move you closer to your goals have now been lost.
Yu have to make a point of knowing where the “blip” of your existence is positioned on the radar screen of life. Too many times we become delusional as to what we can realistically accomplish and will become discouraged from staying focused because we have given up deep down inside. What does this have to do with being synchronized? Well without the enthusiasm for your particular endeavors, you are simply dead weight to yourself which will allow all types of other thoughts come into your mind to distract you.
Keep you drive to accomplish up by having smaller victories as you move toward your goals in more attainable increments. It will keep your mind “in the moment” and keep you in line with the universe around you. The worst thing is to be out of sync with all that is in your midst imagining a reality that really isn’t there because you are disconnected. That particular state of mind just might be the beginnings of insanity…….
For my final thoughts on attaining that state of living in harmony, balance and synchronization is that we must know how to actually disconnect “enough” in the times of stress when a hectic schedule can wear down the best of us. It’s a mental way of holding the heat in, just like that person who wears their winter coat in the freezing weather, they trap the heat that they produce so that they can move about the earth in comfort.
Well, this is what we can do when the stress and idiotic coworkers attempt to snatch your peace of mind, simply “detach” yourself from your surroundings just enough to get the job down but not enough to affect your performance. Execute your personal low maintenance mode so that you just don’t have enough energy to give anything that is not positive or edifying to your life.
Gossip, bickering, grudges, power trips, pissing contests and personality conflicts will cease to exist because your state of mind doesn’t have the energy to really focus on them. Sure, you know that they are there but your main focus will be to get the job done and exit to your wonderful private life as soon as possible!
This will leave you full of the precious energy needed to pursue the things that are really important to you and the negative forces that surround you won’t have the victory of throwing you “out of sync!”
It’s a beautiful thing isn’t it?
This is just one of the techniques that I’ve developed for myself to keep my life productive as well as extracting the maximum enjoyment out of it more so than those who haven’t a clue on how to make a 24 hour period feel like a whole WEEK!
Peace & Righteous Love Always,
Your Totally Synchronized Brother
LanceScurv,
407.590.0755
