I’ve been asked the same question over and over today. People want to know how my “tech fast” went. Honestly, I didn’t want to blog about it. I learned some pretty ugly things about myself that I wasn’t too wild about sharing… But I believe in authenticity in Blogville. If I run my mouth about being real and honest on blogs and Twitter then I need to live that out myself.
My time disconnected from my iPhone and my computer was amazing. I’m not going to lie… It wasn’t easy. I was tempted endlessly. My phone had reception at sea and we won 50 free hours of Internet access. I’m so glad I didn’t cave in. I would have totally missed out on what God wanted to reveal to me.
What did I learn? Well, I learned that I depend waaaay too much on technology as the “easy way out”. Let me explain. Whenever I had a craving or desire to go online or use my phone I would ask myself why. Why did I want to check my email or Google Reader? I was shocked at what I discovered. Many times I was avoiding conflict. I didn’t want to deal with the challenges I was facing. I turned to technology as an escape when I was angry, annoyed, antisocial, embarrassed, or lonely. I was trying to avoid the challenge at hand and wanted to distract myself until the problem temporarily went away. It was an eye-opener. I didn’t like the person I was becoming.
Once I figured out the why it was a bit easier to figure out what to do next. If I was angry or annoyed I would take a walk or listen to music. When I was feeling antisocial or lonely I named all the people I know that love and care for me. When I felt embarrassed I just laughed it off and moved on. It was a pretty cool experience.
Today I was able to leave my phone unattended for most of the day. It was a good feeling. As my friend Miguel likes to say “a computer is just a tool”.
So there you have it.
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Congratulations stace! Very proud of you.
Way to be authenticate and transparant. It’s amazing what God can reveal to us when we are paying attention. Proud of you.
Glad your back! You not blogging or twittering was hard on us too!
Thanks for your honesty Stacie. I wonder how many of us our brave enough to try the same type of self discovery.
Thanks for being honest and for quoting me. Ever since we did internet fasting at FRC, I feel the need to do it more often, to pay less attention to our computers and to listen to God a lot more.