Life Unplugged

Last week I went on vacation. That’s right. The blog posts you read were scheduled via auto post and my silence on Twitter and Facebook was due to the fact that I was traipsing through New York City and the surrounding areas with my husband.

As we sat in the airport waiting to depart for our long awaited adventure we both tapped out emails and text messages on our Blackberries. We knew the second we boarded that plane we were going to do something we hadn’t done for a very long time—cut ourselves off from the outside world (at least via technology). Aside from a few tweets I sent to one of the Yankees when we were at the stadium and hoping to get an autograph, we both kept up our end of the deal. No emails, no text messages, no Twitter and no Facebook.

You  know what? It was the most fun either of us had in a long time. We were completely focused on each other. We had distraction free conversations and we lived 100% in the moment.

Although I was tempted to tell the world when we encountered exciting moments like meeting Denzel Washington or watching the Yankees beat the Red Sox with a walk off homerun, I refrained. For once, life was more about living the experience than telling other people about it.

While I’m glad to be back to blogging, Twitter and Facebook I enjoyed my break from my life online more than I could have imagined. And I’ve decided to rethink my approach to all of those things now that I’m home.

While those things will still have a place in my life, they no longer will dictate my life. If there’s a real live person in front of me, then the people accessible through technology will have to wait. I don’t want the people in my life to remember me as the girl who only gave them half of her attention because she always had her Blackberry in her hand.

My vacation taught me that intentional living is much more rewarding that getting more done. Quality relationships are to be valued over quantity of relationships.

With summer coming up you are going to have a lot more time to log online and connect. How do you plan to be intentional about your in person relationships? How will you live 100% in the moment instead of tying yourself to technology 24/7?  

I’d love to hear your thoughts.