Your Phone Is Stealing From You

Presence has been taught by the Masters for thousands of years and it's eluded most of us. It's the one place you can find true peace and joy. Yet if you're never in the present moment, you'll not experience much peace or joy.

...and if we're not experiencing much peace or joy then what exactly are we experiencing?! 

Today, we live in the most un-present (not sure if that's a word?) time in history. We live in the greatest age of distraction because of digital devices.

Cell phones, iPads, and the oh-so not glorious social media has been designed to steal from you.

It's stealing the most precious resource you have, LIFE!

Three quick stories for you of what I've seen that have me more on this kick than ever.

We were in Paris a few weeks ago, there metro system is incredibly impressive. Faster to take the metro than to drive to most places and very efficient and well set up.

Needless to say, we took the metro to most places. Back home I don't ride the bus or take the train, we drive anywhere we're going so I don't get to see this scene at home, but I'm sure it's the same.

Every single day when we would get onto the metro, a good 70% of the people on the train were sitting like zombines glued to their phones. Some playing phone games, but most were watching reels and swiping some kind of social media.

As I was driving home from Cafe Nero here in Cyprus this morning, I watched a late 20s-ish woman out walking her dog in the beautiful sunshine, except rather than being on the walk she was holding her phone out watching some kind of reel/social media.

And the third, we went to the Pafos Zoo the other day (epic zoo by the way if you're in Cyprus), and while we were at a bird show, a 4-5 year old boy was filming the show on his parents phone, the entire time watching this really cool show unfold, except he was watching it on the screen of the phone. 

We've gotten addicted and hooked in society so bad that here was this boy, watching real life happen, but instead of watching it in real life -- he was watching on the screen of the phone.

I know these are not new things to be seeing and are not unique, it's been happening for years and happening everywhere.

This is not meant to be a judgement of any of these people but an observation of how horribly, horribly far these devices have gone to stealing our lives. Now we can't even go for a walk and enjoy it without checking out texts, checking our social or emails etc.

This has become something I'm pretty passionate about and have built a growing dis-trust and dis-like of social media and overall the addictiveness of these destructive digital devices. 

Which brings me to my main point - CELL PHONES ARE THE BIGGEST LIFE-STEALERS ON THE PLANET RIGHT NOW!

So, this is your reminder for the day - get off your phone, get off social media. Go live the day. Go enjoy it. 

If you want more joy, more peace and more happiness in your life - spend less time on your digital devices.

Consider getting off social media for awhile or maybe even permanently.

I've been off it the last 3 months. I deleted FB and IG off my phone so I couldn't access them there. I hadn't touched it for 2 months and then the Facebook monster began to creep in, well I should at least see what people are up to, it's not going to hurt to check it today. 

Before I knew it I was checking on my laptop almost daily again. So I changed my password to a random mash-up of keys furiously typed making the only way for me to login to be resetting my password. 

Yes, I know many of us run our businesses and careers with our phones, I get it. I do a lot of my work either on the computer or on the phone so I'm not saying we can just throw them in the garbage and go back to the 1990s. But if we don't start taking back control, then more and more of our lives get spent, used up staring at a screen rather than living real life.

I have a coaching client who shared honestly with me that he spends an hour, two maybe even three check social media and wasting time on it. 

I challenged him to get off social media for a month and just see what happens. He took the challenge and is off of it for the month of Feb.

Already he's got more time in his mornings, he says he hasn't missed it.

Maybe you'll join us in the getting off social movement, maybe not.

Either way, just remember your phone is stealing your life and life is meant to be lived, not watched through a screen.

As always, with love,

Ben Spangl