Unplugged

Yesterday, of all the days in the world, I woke up with my phone broken. I laid down last night with a perfectly shattered screened phone that worked just fine and woke up with a phone that did absolutely nothing but shows a white screen with a black apple. It sounds depressing, right? Trust me I was all sorts of frustrated at 7:30 AM this morning.

A couple hours later, full of my mom telling me it wasn’t the end of the world, I took the sim card out and put  it in an old iPhone, in the case of any emergencies, and we left for the farm. All the access I had was the people who texted me because I didn’t have any contacts and Facebook. Obviously top priority stuff, but what I soon realized is that my mom was right I could go a day virtually without a phone. Without a phone, I rode in the car and actually talked to my family and heard about the craziness happening in their lives. I saw the beautiful nature of Arkansas in the summer time as we rode the backroads to my grandparent’s house, and I also for the first time noticed how much Fort Smith has grown since I left.

I had the opportunity to experience my day completely differently, because instead of finding all of the greatest pictures of my dad for a collage to post on Instagram, to prove to everyone, including him, how much I actually loved my dad. I was able to show him, by looking him in the eyes and telling him that myself. I laughed with him and updated him about my life, my new aspirations, and all about how I have been spending my summer. I had a day without him asking who I was texting, snap chatting, Instagramming, etc, and spent time with my dad. I was able to sit and enjoy the company of a side of my family that only gets together maybe twice a year. I got to laugh harder than I have in a month, just my sitting and being engaged in my surroundings.

Is it not sad the world we live in today? We live in a world where putting down the cell phone and having an actual conversation is no longer common. Everyone is constantly connecting with someone else, somewhere else, instead of the people all around them. I challenge you to start putting down the phone. Start engaging in the people around you and making memories. You never know when the last time you will be with that person again, and they deserve all of your attention. I challenge you to be unplugged.