Life Unplugged

So I was planning on posting about last week’s radio appearance today, but the podcast isn’t available quite yet.  So in an attempt to be adaptive, I’ll share some transitional thoughts, which will eventually entail linking my vacation experience to the conflict between the digital and analog world.  I hope to have the summary and podcast available by next week for anyone interested.

I was away over Fourth of July week.  Prior to leaving I’d decided to unplug and focus on my analog world, while tuning out the immediacy of digital demands.  I was excited about my plan to engage in borderline monastic seclusion, and to read, reflect, meditate, and spend time with my family.  As with most things in life, the results were mixed.  There were unexpected intrusions: hospital visits, 3 days of rain (where I had planned on basking in the sun), crippling thoughts, cancelled plans, and a variety of other obstacles.  I had two options: view the week as a failure, or choose to face the life lessons and enjoy the moments of adaptive possibility.  There was definitely internal conflict about which path to choose.  The emotional side of me wanted to say it was a failure.  Ultimately, I couldn’t escape what I knew was stirring in me–a teachable moment.

So what does it mean to unplug on vacation, knowing that we’ll face hurdles and inconveniences (both externally and internally)?  To unplug is to set a boundary that our life and emotions don’t always cooperate with.  For me, it translates into allowing enough distance from my routine to be affected by the parallel change in culture, rhythm, and relationship .  And when I become disconnected from the routine, a routine that lures me into a sleepy, static apathy, I experience the opportunity to shift.

Our decisions to unplug on vacation will never work out exactly as we hope.  Life will, inevitably, bleed in to our attempts to avoid it.  It will disrupt our hopes in ways that are expected, and others that are unexpected.  It’s always good to be intentional about stepping away from life, making a decision to unplug, and giving ourselves the opportunity to perceive with different senses.  Instead of expecting that we’ll enjoy every moment of that time away, we’d do better to know that we can learn from it.

My vacation didn’t go as planned.  There were a lot of disappointments, frustrations, and internal demons.  But there were also some priceless moments of beauty, connection, and warmth.  What I can say is that I came home changed.  Those experiences, on some level, altered me.  They taught me much about my own weaknesses and shortcomings, and they helped to forge resiliency from being knocked over by my failures and struggling back to my feet.

In the words of Nelson Mandela, when we come back from the world of the unplugged, I hope we can come owning this reflection: “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”  How well do you leverage all of the disappointments of life, unplugged?  Do you let them cripple you, or revive you?