Rule #9- To Change the World

ACT don’t REACT. The difference between the two is simply time. It’s the ten seconds you take before responding to criticism. It’s THINKING before you SPEAK. Because sometimes our quickest reactions are the ones we regret the longest. 

There’s An Off Button?

A few weeks ago after watching this video, I began to think about all the noise in my life. Noise that I thought helped me but actually just distracts me from what is happening right in front of my eyes.

It’s sad when you realize that when your kids are talking to you, you are spending more time looking at your phone or laptop then your their eyes. I love technology but it has created this “hum” in every minute of my life, and without realizing it, I have become addicted to that noise.

So last week I decided to experiment with the noise in my life, starting with my cell phone. My phone is my second brain… my memory. It has my calendar, my contacts, my todo list ect… I can’t live without it. But on top of the things my phone does to help me be productive, I also have it set up to receive email from three different accounts, notify me whenever anyone on Twitter say’s anything about nothing, Facebook alerts me whenever anyone comments on anything I post, or if anyone likes something I post, or if anyone comments or likes anything that I already liked or commented on which leads to an endless abyss of Facebook notifications that go on forever and ever and ever. (That’s a whole different post)

Between email, twitter, Facebook, and regular old fashion communication like telephone calls and text messges, it’s not an exageration to say that my phone is constantly making noise and wanting my attention.

When I started thinking about all this extra noise in my life and if I really needed it, I was surprised by the answer, it was no.

No, I don’t need to know every time one of my friends was eating lunch, or at Starbucks or had just increased their bean crop on Farmville. I didn’t need to see the latest Twitpic of someone seats at a concert, funny sign they just passed or plate they just licked clean. And honestly, when I leave the office, there is nothing that is so important that I need to be able to read email about it when I’m with my family.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy that stuff. (except Farmville, I HATE that) I LOVE that it is so easy to communicate with my friends around the world and around the block. But I don’t NEED it. Not all the time.

So… I turned it off. Just on my phone. (Except email during business hours and only work email)

It wasn’t easy. In fact, it took a few days to break the habit of constantly looking down at my phone.

It might not have been easy, but it has been one of the best things I have ever done. You might not believe me, but the simple act of turning off those things on my phone has brought a level of peace in my life that I would have never imagined.

Am I still gonna Twitter, use Facebook, check email, write and read blogs? Yes, but I don’t have too.

Until I stopped I never knew what kind of habit I had developed.

There will always be noise in my life, I can’t control that. (I have two kids after all) But there is some noise I can control. Noise I can regulate. And from now on, I’m going to try to do a better job with the regulation of that noise.

I would encourage you to try the same thing. We all can’t move to the woods and live in a tent, but it is possible to unplug, even for just a few hours a day.