Off The Grid

Friday, March 15, 2013

This morning I had to live in the life pre 2000 when I got my first cell phone. You see, I plugged my cell in on my nightstand before bed, and awoke in the morning to hubby's alarm. "Strange" I thought to myself, rolled over and clicked my phone to see what time it was. Nothing. Just a black screen staring back at me. Well, it was long after I should have been awake, so I raced to get ready, and plugged my phone into a different charger and outlet. An hour and a half later, still nothing. So, off the grid I went for the commute to work.

No Facebook. No Instagram. No Gmail. What is one to do on a train for 30 minutes without a smartphone? Read. I pulled out my Nook and opened up my new purchase 'Lean In.' The time went by just as quickly, and I may have gotten a bit smarter by not clicking through social media all morning.

Eventually I made it to Verizon where they jump started my phone, the clouds parted, the sun shined through, and I was back in business. While I called off the carrier pigeons, I thought about what it would do for our lives if we were to go off the grid more often.

As anxious as I was having no phone, it was a kind of nice. Could people still reach me? Yes. Could I still Facebook? Yes. Could I still Google things to my heart's desire? Yes. Do we really need constant access to media? Probably not. What is really all that bad? No.

Going forward, on Sundays, I'm going to try to be off the grid. I will still carry my phone, but only use it as a phone (or to text. I mean, who calls people anymore?) No email. No social media. The hope of "Off the Grid Sunday" is to connect more with my family, and have quality time to do whatever I choose without the distraction that cell phones have become. I can only imagine all of things I can accomplish with the extra time I'll have by not using my cell phone constantly.


Do you think you can join me in OTGS? If so, leave a comment and re-post. Let's see how many of us can do it, and regain all of those hours in our lives that we've been missing.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Update 3.26.2013

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