Media fast

Do you ever feel like life is whirring by you so fast that you can't really grasp onto anything, can't take in anything? It's been a little like that over here lately.

And in the middle of the whir, I find myself living for my down time, for 8:00 or whenever it is that I am home and finished with all my obligations and lists for the day. And I find myself spending that down time in the most brainless ways possible because, let's be honest: it's the end of the day and I'm tired and I need to be distracted from life for a little while. So, I watch an hour of TV or check websites. And it hits me: these are the things I'm living and longing for? These are what I live my hours looking forward to?

So, on the heels of a challenging conversation with our small group last night and some quality discussion together, Phil & I have decided to take a week-long media fast. For us, that means no TV, no Facebook, no reading blogs, no online TV watching, and minimizing how often we check our email. Basically, we're cutting out the "distracting" parts of media and trying to spend that time more intentionally.

Don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with enjoying TV shows & using the Internet, but they've become what I live for & what I look forward to & they've been keeping me from more worthwhile ways of spending my time, so for me at this time, they're causing more harm than good.

We don't  watch that much TV anyway, but when we get to the end of the week and think, "I didn't have time to ________ (insert something that takes 30 minutes or less)" and then realize that we've spent at least that long watching a show or checking websites, we can see how the minutes of media here and there add up to hours and keep us from doing what is more important.

Like blogging.

I've put off so many blog posts because I don't want to do the work of writing. I don't want to be disciplined and creative and have to think at the end of the day; I'd much rather veg in front of the TV and let my mind wander. So, here I am on a Tuesday afternoon with TIME to write and I'm doing it because I've eliminated the distractions that normally keep me from it.

And it feels good--in an eat-more-vegetables kind of way. It feels healthy and new and difficult and refreshing all at the same time, and I have to say that I'm enjoying the simplicity of being unplugged. I'm looking forward to catching up on cleaning, reading, recipe-finding, relationships, letter-writing, and lots of little loose ends I've been avoiding because I "don't have time." I'm looking forward to slowing down and paring down and giving my mind and heart S P A C E to see--really see--life deeply.