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| Flickr image by Richard Giles |
Don’t read this!
I see you didn’t heed my warning. Let me try again. My advice is...DON’T READ THIS.
Are you still here? It’s not that I want you to forever stop reading these messages, but reading about how to lead a whole and fulfilling life and doing it are not the same. To do it, you might have to do something else that is increasingly difficult for many of us...walk away from your media.
I just read of a young mother who lost her cell phone and was forced to stay off of Facebook and away from texting friends for a few days. She said she actually found herself doing something she hadn’t done in a couple of years -- interacting with her family. She felt as if she got her life back and was worried that she’d slip into the same old patterns with her new phone.
Katherine Jackson, mother of the late pop star Michael Jackson, explained this about her son: "It all really started when Michael was three or four years old. The TV broke and the kids started dancing and singing to entertain themselves. I convinced their father they were good, and after he listened to them, he agreed with me." The TV broke and, well, you know the rest of the story.
A woman lost her phone and something surprising happened. The TV broke and something historic happened. So now, if you’re still reading this (and you obviously are), let me ask a question: if you were to walk away from your media for the rest of the day, what amazing thing might happen to you?
Do you remember the story of a woman driving through the countryside who saw an astonishing sight? It was of a man standing on a ladder against an apple tree with a goat in his arms. The animal calmly ate apples from the tree while the man patiently held it up.
The curious woman stopped the car. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Feeding my goat, of course."
"Doesn't it take an awfully long time that way?"
"Heck," he said. "What's time to a goat?"
Good question: what’s time to a goat? But you’re not a goat. And chances are there is likely an electronic device at hand stealing more of your time than you can afford to lose.
If your television, computer or mobile device broke, what might get fixed? Or, put another way, if you turned OFF the media for a while, what might get turned ON?
And one more question -- this is the big one. Are you ready to find out?
-- Steve Goodier
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