Not literally.... but being cut off from the world... or more rightly cut off from the 'grid'. The grid of social network, media, news, emails, phones and anything else that keeps you 'connected'.
Recently on our annual family vacation... that’s exactly what we did. The data network on the blackberries was switched off. The laptops were stowed away. And minus a few phone calls back home or coordinating a few excursions. We all were literally cut off.
And it felt great. Amazing. Free.
Before we left, I had put in a couple of pre-scheduled posts. I had responded to my work obligations and above all activated my Out Of Office and then lived to the text: "I will have no email connectivity."
I know there is no obligation to check emails every two minutes, see FB, read the news, check if the weather changed from noon to two pm or even just surf the network. But we all still do it. Guilty as charged and we don’t realize what we are missing out on.
During our vacation, we were up and about from 6:30 in the morning and would be bone tired by 8. We’d sleep early to refresh ourselves and then the next day began the minute we saw the sun shining outside. No TV, no catching up, nothing.
My book and the sun block were my company while my daughter snoozed on the sun kissed beaches. Our TV conversations were taken over by discussing the warmth and the colors of the flowers. We noticed the tiny red bird on the tree just because we were gazing up the tree instead of our 'smart' phones. And I am very happy to say that I rejuvenated myself and SD and I explored a lot more than we had researched on the net. Just talking to locals and learning the ways was way more information than any Google search ever gave us.
Now that we are back, we are re-adjusted. Connected. But still refreshed. Consciously or not, the TV is not on as much anymore. I realized I didn’t miss it as much. The post dinner time has been taken up by a fun game of bananagrams or finishing books sooner or just relaxing or calling up friends and catching up instead of 'fb-ing' them.
I know by no means, I am saying good bye to my living in the fast lane anytime soon. But every once in a while, staying offline made me enjoy my life more. Way more.
2 comments:
I wish to do that sometimes...get totally cut off...its indeed a great feeling of freedom to do things as we wish...sometimes arent we bound by the mails, the fb statuses and all these ????
@ Uma.. We are so bound, we dont even realise it. On days I forget my phone home, I am squirming.. I havent checked my emails the entire day,.. oh the horror!
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