By Shannon Williams
“Almost everything will work again, if you unplug it for a few minutes including you.” Anne Lamott
Last week, I wrote some about a recent cruise and how cruising is the way I totally “checkout.” Checking out or “going off grid” is a needed activity in this day and age. You think as we have advanced as a society that things would get easier, but I fear we have made most things much harder.

I have a love hate relationship with computers, I sit in front of one most of the day and they are on my phone and with my new apple watch one is now on my body. All of the computers and the apps that are part of them, are designed (so we are told) to make our life easier and to help us be the person we all need to become. I don’t know about you, but they just stress me out. I have always heard that we don’t use the vast majority of our brains and I assure you I am not using the vast majority of the computers in my life. I want to, but it just does not work that way. I still struggle with my smart TV, ok I know it is smarter than me, but does it have to remind me? I sign up for steaming services and never use them as I forget passwords, how to get to the correct mode and how to stand just right so they will work. I have cheat sheets, notes on my phone (that’s a joke) and have been shown several times, but still I have to work to find what I want to watch. It seems I sign up for “free service” and the next thing you know I am getting billed and it takes an act of congress to get them turned off!

So that is why I have to get away from them. Don’t laugh, but I still make handwritten lists and use a paper calendar. Now I can and do use the computer for these also, but I just feel better when I write it down; I think that is how it gets into my mind that I have a task to complete or a place to be. My phone and apple watch love to tell me where I need to be and I am awful at setting them for pm when I mean am and then my duck sounds (my reminder of an appointment is a duck call) goes off in the middle of the night.

I think that many people come to Crystal Beach to go off the grid, but then they want Wi-Fi and streaming and to order door dash as they don’t do well without these services. Where is the middle ground? When is too much tech, too much tech and if you learn how to use it all does it reduce your stress?

That question or problem in my life is much like the issue of self-care. Over and over we are told to take care of ourselves and to put ourselves first, but that is hard. I find it much easier to take care of others and then hope my needs get met along the way, but it does not always work. The perfect example is the coffee/tea situation in our household. My husband drinks decaf coffee and I drink hot tea. We have a coffee maker that uses the pods. I work to make sure I keep enough of his coffee in the house, but again this week, I ran out of my hot tea pods! You think I would just do it at the same time, but he runs out before me, so I stopped that practice. I hate it that I can keep up with his, but totally forget to order mine, again I think some of us are programed to put ourselves last and it catches up with us. Then when we decided to take actions to put ourselves first, everyone wants to know what happened LOL!!

So how do we cope with tech to make our life easier and not get caught in all of it and how do we put ourselves first, or at least in the top 3 and not be selfish? Both of these are issues that our parents did not have to deal with. Things and tasks were hard and things that made them easy were looked upon as not being good for you. I tried to explain to my 93-year-old mother why I was “going off the grid, to re center myself” and I was just speaking a foreign language to her. She is a mother of 5, there was no time for herself or putting her needs first. The very thought of her putting her needs first would upset her. I think that is programmed in me too. BUT, I am working to do better at that ole self-love and self-care. I am putting the finishes on a new She Shed for me to get away from the office and the computer. I am going to do my arts and craft project and try to get some of my art skills back. If that fails I will just read! I am looking forward to a special place for me. I am not going to put a computer in there and I am going to work hard to leave the phone upstairs, we will see how that works.

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are” Malcolm S. Forbes

[Feb-22-2022]