Breaking the Addiction

            Last semester I wrote a 17-page paper about the benefits of technology, mainly social media. I argued for how social media can enhance classroom learning if used properly and in moderation. I raised points about how technology has bridged otherwise unbridgeable gaps in geography. I pursued the idea that it enhances the ability for people to connect and relate. For 17 pages I went on about how great social media and technology is. Only thing is, now I’m not sure I’d agree with myself. Yes, technology is good, and advancements in it have allowed for global connectivity and advancements in science that prolong the average life span and enable us to research the depths of the sea and outer space. I’m not here to say all technology is bad. But I think that we as a society have reached a point of near crisis in our abuse of technology. I’ve never before been an advocate for this side of the argument, but over the past few months I’ve found myself growing more and more infuriated with our use of technology and social media. We’ve become a culture addicted to at-your-fingertips ease of access to nearly anything we need. Don’t know what a word means, google it on you iPhone. Someone said something funny, tweet it quick before you forget. You climbed to the top of a mountain and saw a magnificent sunset, instagram it because pictures or it didn’t happen. We’re addicted to a virtual world and we’ve become more invested in how many likes we can get on a picture than the actual issues of the world.
            The only problem with my argument against technology is that I’m just as much to blame as the next guy. I am addicted to my phone and to social media. Whenever I’m in public and I start to feel awkward, I turn to my phone. Whenever I’m bored, I turn to my phone. It’s even gotten to the point that if I get a notification on my phone while I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone I’ll take my eyes off of them and turn them to my phone. I will literally engage with social media when I am with another person. I scroll through my twitter feed and my instagram feed only to see the same pictures I looked at when I checked it five minutes ago. I read through Facebook posts and take the most pointless quizzes on BuzzFeed thinking I’ll somehow realize my true identity if I know which Grey’s Anatomy character I am. I check to see every single person who’s looked at my Snapchat story to make sure the right people saw it. I one time literally sat with my friend and forced her to snap me back and forth hundreds of time just to get my score to go up (even though what even is the point of a score?!?) I scroll through Timehop just to see what I was up to on social media 1, 2, 3, 4+ years ago. It’s like social media-ception. I cannot escape it, and worse, I cannot escape my addiction to it. I’ll admit to feeling a sort of emptiness if my instagram picture doesn’t get what society deems as “enough likes.” I’ll admit to posting things on Twitter to get someone’s attention, or sub tweeting about someone when I’m mad at them. I’ll admit to having felt a certain high when I reached and then exceed 1,000 friends on Facebook. I am addicted, and I turn to social media thinking I’ll somehow find myself.

            But what are 1,000 friends on Facebook if I don’t invest in my real life friendships and relationships. What is 70 likes on a instagram if I’m not striving to be a better, more patient and more loving person. All of these numbers are meaningless, really, and it makes me sick to think how much stock people put in them, how much stock I put in them. There is no greater value than that of knowing—truly knowing—another person. And we’ve become a culture so engrossed in our screens that we think we know a person based solely on what they post. We judge, we criticize; we jump to conclusions about people based on the most superficial things. We spend more time a day on our phones than we do engaging in real life, face-to-face conversations. And we turn to technology as a shield to hide behind when we have to talk to someone about something serious or vulnerable. I am not free from these claims. I’m only a perpetuator of the problem.

            I first started to realize my issue when I got back from Haiti this year. After nearly 10 days of not looking at my phone I opened my texting to let my friends and family know I had landed safely back in the states. The keyboard looked foreign, my fingers forgot how to move across the screen that they had once known how to do so effortlessly. I felt like I was using an iPhone for the first time. By the time I was back in the states for about a week I found myself growing tired of the constant need for connection and the dependency I had on my phone. Being very OCD and type A I need to stay on top of things or I fall subject to unhealthy and uncontrollable amounts of anxiety. One way to combat this is to know my schedule, but in order to do so I need to see my google calendar; I need to make sure I get emails and texts the moment they’re sent, I need to stay on top of the ever-changing structure of the day. I hate that everything I need to know is primarily found and communicated through technology. But regardless I can choose to break away from that need. I made it just fine in Haiti without my phone, and I can make it just fine here without using it nearly as much.

            I started to realize the larger problem with technology when I was babysitting a few weeks back. I babysit 3 kids, a 15-year-old, a 10-year-old, and an 8-year-old. The 8-year-old is addicted to his parent’s iPads (yes, multiple iPads). The minute he gets home from school he runs to it. I pry him away only long enough for him to do his homework sheet, and then he’s right back to it. On the nicer days I do everything I can to get him to play outside, but he always puts up a fight arguing just “five more minutes” on the iPad. I can’t stand it. He’s 8-years-old and his primary source of entertainment is found on a screen. What happened to digging for worms and reading books and playing with Play-Doh and building forts? There is something fundamentally wrong with the amount of exposure kids today have to technology.

            In case you missed it, the Apple Watch is here, allowing users to do everything they could already do with their iPhone but in a smaller scale and literally right on their wrist. I really do not understand the Apple Watch if I’m being completely honest. Why would you need a watch to do anything more than tell the time, set an alarm, and maybe have a stopwatch feature? I’ll tell ya, I’ve been using this little $30 Timex watch for the past two years and it’s waterproof and sweat proof and survived two grueling trips to Haiti. It tells me the time and the date and works as an alarm and has a stopwatch feature for timing runs. Heck, it does everything I’ll ever need a watch to do. But somehow society has moved into an age where an iPhone and MacBook aren’t enough. Now we need a smaller iPhone strapped on our wrist. But the Apple Watch serves literally no function if you don’t have an iPhone to pair it to, which is also pretty crazy because then you’ll actually have two of the exact same devices that are completely co-dependent on one another. So in case the iPhone you carry around with you in your back pocket isn’t convenient enough you’ll now have the same exact abilities right on your wrist.

            I understand that I’m a hypocrite for all of this, I mean, come on, I’m posting about it on my ONLINE blog…it doesn’t get much more hypocritical than that. But let me reiterate. I love technology. I love being able to use my laptop to research and write papers. I love having my phone so I can call my parents no matter where in the world I am. And I’m not even trying to say social media sites in and of themselves are bad. What is going causing problems, though, is the way I abuse them and try and find my identity in them. I rely so heavily on technology, constant connection, and social media that I’ll risk walking right into someone on my way to class just so it looks like I’m texting someone so I feel a little less isolated. I feel a little boost of confidence every time my instagram gets more likes than someone else’s and I felt like I’d finally made it when I had Facebook friends in the thousands. I want to end my addiction. So here’s what I’m going to (try my very best) to do:

1.     NEVER look at my phone when I’m talking to someone else

2.     Limit my social media browsing to twice a day

3.     Spend at least an hour a day removed from my phone and laptop (that means no emails, no texts, no homework that is computer based, nothing)

4.     Avoid using my phone to fill a social anxiety void when I’m standing alone in a room full of people

5.     Save important conversations for face-to-face and never hide behind a text because it’s easier and less scary

This is just a start, but I’m hoping it’ll allow me to develop disciplines that will ground me more in reality and less in the virtual world we’re headed for.

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Graduation Rumination XIII - Which Is Harder?

April 19, 2015.

Which is harder: staying in a place and watching all your friends leave or leaving the place where all of your friends are?

If you’d asked me this question four years ago, I would’ve most certainly said the first. I mean, it seems to make the most sense, right? You’re the one being left behind while the people you befriended then did life with go on to new chapters of their lives, new beginnings, one’s without you in them. You’re the one stuck in some weird state of perpetual “past” and you’re left in a place stained with memories from those who’ve left. And two years ago this is exactly where I found myself. My freshman year all of my friends were juniors, so I guess I should’ve seen it coming. I knew their time here would be up long before mine, and as the semesters passed and it came time for them to graduate I was fearful of what Gordon would be like after they’d leave. All I’d ever known of Gordon was the Gordon that they had showed me. Would I make it on my own? Would I be able to feel a sense of belonging here once they left? What will their new lives look like and how much of them will I even see? I was scared being left behind with only fading memories of the friends I once knew so closely. You see, you’d think this one would be the challenging one. I thought so, too. But jump to today…

...It’s my turn to graduate. 4 weeks from today I will be an alum of Gordon College, no longer a student. I’m leaving. And in so doing I’m leaving behind so many people who have come to mean so much to me. You see, I thought it was harder to be left, but I’m learning that it’s actually harder to leave. And maybe I only know this because I was once the one who was left. And I survived it. I realized that even though those friends were, and still are, so important to me, my Gordon story goes on even after they’re gone. Life keeps going, and you meet new people, and soon those are the people who you spend your days with. It’s selfish, really, when you break it down like that. I don’t expect that I’m some irreplaceable person whose presence is pivotal enough to so many people here at Gordon that once removed the entire structure will collapse. In fact, I think almost the complete opposite. I’ve always seen myself as one of those students who goes under the radar. But it’s so unbelievably and incomprehensibly hard to come to terms with the idea that I’m leaving behind the people I’ve come to love and that for them, Gordon is going to go on without me here. But I guess that’s the downside of becoming friends with people who aren’t in your grade. You’ll one day have to say goodbye, and leave them behind.

So which is harder: staying in a place and watching all your friends leave or leaving the place where all of your friends are? The latter. I’ll always choose the latter.

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Graduation Rumination XII - One Month

April 16, 2015.

One month.

What do you do with a month?

I’ve got one month left here at Gordon, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it. I’m wondering if a month from now I’ll look back on tonight and remember how then, I still had a whole month to go. How do you make the most of the coming days? How do you ensure that you’ve done everything you could to make them count?

I want to commit to spend the next 30 days living fully. Feeling every moment for what it is. I want to make these days count, rather than spend my time counting them down. I want to learn, really learn, and practice what it’s like to live fully alive. I want to spend my remaining days as a student here seeking out every opportunity, minimizing my time spent behind a desk in the back corner of Jenks, my skin hollow under fluorescent lights, and maximizing the time I spend beneath the sun, throwing a ball, or reading a book, or learning about someone’s story. I want to try new things I should’ve probably tried ages ago. I want to meet new people, love people, and worship our Lord. I want to call to God and have Him fill me, break me, give me grace. I want to fall to my knees worshipping our King, raising my voice in church, catacombs, chasement, moonlit worship nights by a softly humming shore. I want to ditch class for the chance to learn about my friends, stay up later, wake earlier, and sleep only 5 hours a night. Lengthen my days as the shadows lengthen with a later setting sun, ride my longboard over cracks in the pavement just big enough to quicken the tempo of my beating heart. I want to drive to the beach taking only back roads, play music too loud, and roll the windows down and eat extra scoops of ice cream. I want to dance on the quad and swing on the swing, and visit the prayer room since I have never been before. I want to talk with professors and learn about their lives. I want to sit in lane during lunch rush just to say hello to those who pass by. I want to make sure, that amidst all of this life, I’m actually fully alive.

I’ve got one month.

What do you do with a month?

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Graduation Rumination XI - The Most Important Lesson

April 9, 2015.

If there is anything I’ve learned since being at Gordon it’s how to be a thinker, an open-minded, passionate thinker.

I never thought I was a closed-minded person. I never thought I was a closed-minded person, that is, until I realized I was becoming an open-minded person. I used to see the world through a very narrow scope. I only saw what I wanted to see, and once I made my mind up about something there was no chance of changing it. I had tunnel vision about this world, about our God, about my faith. I had tunnel vision and it was shutting me out to not only the world beyond my limited view, but to relationships that could thrive from the sharing and conversing about differing opinions. I used to be weak in my narrow-mindedness, but now I’ve been made strong in my own convictions in a way that is malleable, shapeable, and shifting. I’ve begun to see the world more broadly, understand it more widely, and seek it more passionately. And I owe that to the classes I’ve taken, the professors I’ve interacted with, the things I’ve been involved in, and people I’ve spent time with during my days here.

Thinking back on my academic career at Gordon I realize my appreciation for a liberal arts education. I might not remember dates I once had memorized for Historical Perspectives, nor will I necessarily remember which Philosopher said what in quotes I used to write an Examined Life paper, but what I will remember is the way that both of those classes made me rethink about the world. The way they exposed me to ideas, cultures, histories, worlds beyond and before mine. The way I was shown what faith looked like in a time before technology, and how I learned about various human social groups in different parts of the world. I’m thankful for the classes I’ve taken that took me back or over or around to different parts of the world in a different day in age. I’m thankful for the opportunity to study diversely and widely without even stepping foot off my campus.

My professors and staff here at Gordon have also pivotally shaped me. Some I’ve connected with and other I haven’t but either way impacted in some way or another. I remember taking an elective class my second semester freshman year. I took Introduction to Human Movement and my professor talked so much about worldview. His passion for worldview really began my passionate pursuit of the idea. In the same way, my passions have been ignited by the various passions of those I’ve worked with, whether it is a Comm professor instilling a passion for storytelling, a creative writing professor imparting a passion for the English language and the interplay of words, a spiritual mentor passing on a desire for spiritual disciplines, or an RD drawing out a desire for continual study in higher education, the faculty and staff I’ve worked with and under have refocused my narrow mind onto a much broader track, one that allows room for conflicting and challenging ideas to work with my own convictions.

But my time at Gordon hasn’t been limited to purely academic pursuits. Gordon has provided me the opportunity to explore my interests in so many ways beyond the classroom. Through the ability to lead a Spiritual Life Group I was able to learn from leaders and peers the benefit of spiritual disciplines, of fostering communities and safe places conducive for vulnerability and honesty, things I’d never really taken the time to consider before. My worldview was broadened so practically in terms of what daily faith looks like truly lived out. Most tangibly my entire scope has been shattered when I went to Haiti. Or perhaps, when I recognized within myself a calling to go to Haiti. It’s crazy, really, because one of the things I was most rigid towards, one of the things I was most afraid of, was missions. It wasn’t that I just didn’t feel a particular calling to missions, for me I almost resented missions for reasons so superficial I can’t bear them here, but I was hardened to the idea of being a missionary for Christ. But one January morning in 2012 I awoke with a need to go on a mission trip. A little over a year later I was on the plane to Haiti. Through all of my pre-trip preparation and obviously through the trip itself I was broken, broken, broken. I was shattered, my resentment destroyed under a heavy fist, like cement under a mallet, shards shooting out and turning to dust. I was left completely as rubble. But man did I learn. And now I’ve a passion in me for Haiti, missions, and the work of Christ that I’d never known could even exist. But more than that, Gordon has shown me what it means to be a missionary in my own home, in my own town. I’ve learned that mission work doesn’t need to be in a foreign place or a 3^rd world country, but it can start as locally as your own community. I wrestle with the idea that I didn’t invest enough during my time at Gordon, but I’m beginning to see so clearly that the things I did invest in invested so fully in me.

But it’s through the people I’ve met, sat with, lived with, done life with, that I’ve learned the most about what it means to have an open-mind and a softened heart. Through arguments and times of extreme resentment and hate I’ve learned what it truly looks like to love, to extend grace, and to act with patience. I’ve been challenged to think about my true purpose here on earth when so many times I ask “why” if Heaven is the world we’re made for. I’ve been stretched to think about people differently, to see them more equally, to love them more authentically. I’ve been shown the beauty in discovering and uncovering story, whether it be my own or that of another. I’ve had conversation about faith and science, faith and politics, faith and brokenness. I’ve heard sermons on relationships and redemption, trial and trouble. I’ve never before seen so many facets of the world, allowing my ears to be opened to the sometimes vastly differing opinions, beliefs, and convictions of my peers. I’ve allowed my heart to be softened to the handiwork of Christ in me. I’ve been given the space to take what I’ve heard and process it in my own way at my own time and start to craft my own convictions of this complex world. Every conversation, every sermons, every lecture, has allowed me to learn, to grow passionate, to find beauty in simply seeking a better understanding.

So like I’ve said, I don’t remember everything I learned in Old Testament, and I sure as heck don’t remember everything I learned in Scientific Enterprise. I’ll probably forget most of the facts, most of the dates, most of the names, but that’s okay with me. Because numbers and names aren’t what this thing is about. No, this is about learning how to learn, how to think critically about the world and its inhabitants. It’s about becoming a participative member in not only society but in the Kingdom. It’s about becoming an agent for Christ, an agent of Shalom (The Great Conversation). It’s about opening your ears, your heart, your eyes, your mind, your palm, and absorbing the world around us in all of its diversity, complexity and brokenness. It’s crazy what you miss when you’re too busy defending your own thoughts and ideas. I’m so thankful for my education and I’m so thankful for the person Gordon, and all Gordon has to offer, has shaped me to be. . I never thought I was a closed-minded person, that is, until I began to see the world a little more broadly.

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Graduation Rumination X - Cap and Gown

April 7, 2015.

You can’t stay in college forever. And no matter how much I try to deny it, my time here is coming to a close. I can try and pretend like it’s not happening, I can try and turn my back on the future that is surely going to come, but that’s the thing, it is going to come.

I got my cap and gown today. It was nicely bundled in its little package, the gown folded neatly around the cap, the tassel tossed in on top. There was no graduation year on the tassel, which I suppose is okay, but not what I was expecting. It was quick to get it, too. Walk up to the table, which was in Jenks of all places, say your name, sign a form, and grab your things. Cap, gown, tassel, white neck thing, Baccalaureate and Commencement tickets, oh and instructions on how to wear the white thing, and how long your gown should be, and how to get the wrinkles out of it (steam, not iron). It wasn’t heavy, the material is thin and the bag itself was light, but it felt so heavy in my hands. I could feel it burning my palms as I walked away from the table. It’s not like I didn’t know the day was coming. We got like a million emails from Janet Potts about it. That’s one of only a very few things I probably wont miss about Gordon, all the emails all the time. So I mean, I knew it was coming but what does that change? April 7^th, April 7^th, April 7^th. It seemed a little early to get them if you ask me, but then again I guess graduation isn’t all that far away. Which is terrifying in its own right. But day by day, you’ve got to take this thing day by day or you’ll never make it to May, at least not with your sanity in tact. So Today I got my cap and gown, and tomorrow I’ll try the thing on. And the tomorrows after that I’ll do a bunch of other normal daily things, and one day today will be May 16^th. But that’s not now, that’s not today. Today I just get the cap and the gown.

I can’t stay here forever, I don’t think I’d like to stay here forever if I’m being totally honest, but I either way I’m leaving in a little over a month. And it feels a heck of a lot more real today than it did yesterday or the yesterday before that. But it’s okay; I’ve tucked the cap and gown away to a place where I can’t see them. I’ll take it out again, but only with just enough time to steam it before I have to wear it.

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