For my birthday I asked my hubby for a computer free day.
Daily he’s either writing a novel in Word,
playing an online game called Torn
City, (or Mahjong) surfing the net for really unusual stories and trivia, but
he does always share new I Can Has Cheezburger photos he comes across, he
occasionally even does research for me but it’s lower on the priority list--and
I’m the one who works virtually! Surprisingly he agreed without too much
resistance--it was my day I could have a “yes dear” day. Defined as: I ask him
to do something and his response every time is, “Yes Dear.” Brave ain’t he!?
My work was caught up I knew I’d miss a few emails and reading FaceBook but I wasn’t jonesin’ to get my hands on the keyboard. It felt freeing to not have to check in or surf the net for a piece of information. It was truly a day off. It was constantly in my face how much we depend on the Internet for everything, if we wanted to look up a director or movie star, check out a new restaurant, look at my calendar, add a note to my to-do list; I caved in when we needed show times at the theatre. While I was getting ready I took pity gave him a free pass to play his game. What would we do without it? Imagine for a second how would you work, play, communicate for a day without the Internet? For a week? Didya panic at those words?
We went out to breakfast, shopped at Target and were gone till 11am when we went home and had a junk food snackfest while we watched the Abyss. We were so carbed out after that we read for a while and then napped. It doesn’t sound like much but without the computers between us we were more connected and relaxed—we talked and laughed even more than usual and held hands during the movie. Don’t tell him I said that: he has an image to uphold. We weren’t distracted and only half listening to each other. We were present and it was a special gift.
How do you and your family unplug? Or do you? When Brin visits we joke that she only comes to connect with the computer (she doesn’t have one) not really with us—we’re a byproduct of her techno fix. To tell her the computers were off for the day, ha she’d snort and go home. ;) I want to propose that we agree on one day every week to unplug and connect with each other. Yup the entire day. Anyone up for the challenge? Or if you have this practice in place please share how it works for you and yours and what your experience has been of being unplugged. Till then happy connecting…
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