This piece is part of a short series in which I’m documenting my experience of putting myself on a phone diet. For a week, I’m publishing a short daily reflection on my experience.
Thursday 16 February
My mood was low this morning. I think it was from following Cylcone Gabrielle news so closely. I‘m so thankful not to be living through it directly myself and that I have no loved ones caught up in the cyclone’s destruction but I’m feeling deeply for those who are suffering. My eyes blur with tears when I hear reports of people evacuated from their homes, running out of supplies, without electricity or clean water or cut off from help because of damage to their roads. My chest squeezes when I see video footage showing large areas of land swallowed by milky brown water and people’s homes sodden & uninhabitable. How will they recover? How long will it take? Is this what our future looks like?
Today I gave myself time to decompress, a rare day to do what I felt like rather than ploughing through my to-do list. It felt self-indulgent when so many people up north will be struggling just to survive for months to come but I’ve learned that part of being grateful for our good fortune in life is to enjoy what we have. I decided to appreciate the opportunity to reset myself - but while sticking to the phone diet. It’s the last day, I wasn’t going to blow it at this late stage.
The thing is, much of what I’ve banned myself from this week aren’t things I want to do. They’re no better than distractions from feelings I don’t want to experience, such as boredom. I’ve discovered that my phone actually prevents me from doing the things I do want to do. For example, since starting the diet, I’ve begun studying a little Te Reo Maori in the car when waiting for my boys after school and I’ve been reading in bed at night instead of falling asleep to a podcast. Learning Te Reo and reading are things I want to do.
One of the things I did for myself today was to spend some time on creative projects and sorting out my art supplies drawer. Usually, I like to create to chilled-out instrumental music on shuffle. I was very tempted to turn the music on to get me into a creative state but, being so close to finishing the diet, I resisted. And it was fine. I was so absorbed by what I was doing that I didn’t need music to get me in the mood. This has been one of my big realisations from the diet - life is enough on its own.
To receive my conclusion to this series, My Phone Diet (Final Thoughts), in your inbox tomorrow, subscribe to Relatively True for free.