It seemed everything had come to standstill. Time was inching forward in painful slow motion. I looked out of the window and just saw heaps of snow everywhere. A feeling of helplessness started to sweep me. It all started when I reached home after work, only to find that our DSL modem is on the blink. Without wasting any time, I had called Bell and they promised to send me a new power adapter in 2 business days.
Two business days!! Holy Guacamole!! That seemed like an eternity. There were mails to be answered and training slides to be made. There was no way I could have survived without internet for two days, so I had decided to drive down the following day to one of the Bell outlet and pick up an adapter myself.
No internet means no laptop or smartphone. TV was monotonous too, leaving enough time to engage myself in activities which I used to enjoy. I dashed to my basement to work out and this was the first workout of the year. At least I’d managed to put an end to one of the procrastination. I picked up a book which was collecting dust by my bed for last 6 weeks. I picked up this book from one of the local library and never felt like opening it as I had too many options to indulge myself. With endorphin flowing in my blood from the workout, the book seemed like a magical journey to a distant land untouched by any sort of anxiety and stress. Within few minutes I was in the middle of chapter 4.
In another room, my son was getting restless as there was no internet for his tablet or PlayStation. He actually opened his Canadian Curriculum and finished four chapters in less than an hour. I managed to help him in his homework which I always thought to suck my time. Piled-up mails and bills for the past 6 weeks were cleared in only 15 minutes and were arranged in respective folders. To top it all, I did have enough time to communicate with all my family members about their day. That night I and my wife didn’t touch our smartphone which we usually do to check Whatsapp, Flipboard or Facebook. Instead we actually talked about our work, new changes, commute, winter, plan for kids and vacation.
It’s ironic how technology supposed to make our life easier by communicating our thoughts clearly and doing things easily. On the contrary, it sucks up your time as it makes you addictive to it without improving your output. It all depends how you use technology. For me it seems like I was enslave to it all this time without any sort of realisation. Not having internet for a day brought an epiphany for me. Internet sucks up my 36 hours a week in vortex and that’s 78 days in a year. The point to consider is:
“Are you using technology or being used by technology?”
Binzy's Promiscuous thoughts 