Nancy Colier - The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World

for juliet and gretchen

contents

introduction

finding ground in a virtual world

T he most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing, said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Every day, when I wake up, I try to remember to ask myself: What is the most important thing? What is my hearts longing? What parts of myself do I want to nourish and grow? What do I want to offer? In essence, What really matters?

Every day I try to touch into what this astounding experience of being alive is really about. The contemplation of the most important thing keeps me connected to my most sincere and profound longings and my deeper wisdom. When I am grounded in what is most important, I am more discerning in my choices, less likely to be swayed off course by my small-minded aspects, and far more likely to finish the day feeling good.

As a psychotherapist, interfaith minister, and spiritual counselor, I spend my days talking with people about their lives, internal and external. While functioning successfully in the world, many of those I meet with report a sense of overwhelm, of being consumed by the distractions and chronic multitasking that technology makes possible and to some degree necessary. Whether were tinkering on social media, Googling old acquaintances, looking up facts on Wikipedia, or updating and learning new software, we are spending far too much of our time doing things that dont really matter to us. At this moment in history, as a result of the new opportunities and demands that technology creates, we have forgotten not only what is most important but also that we need to ask ourselves that question. Why do so many people describe the feeling of being disconnected from what really matters, from what makes us feel nourished and grounded as human beings? And, most importantly, how do we remember not to forget to ask, What really matters?

What is real and what is virtual are shifting as technology explodes into our daily lives. At the same time, we are transforming as a society and a species. What is the most important thing? seems like a question in transition. But is it really?

Because of my profession, I have a front-row seat from which to witness, investigate, and try to understand the metamorphosis that we human beings are undergoing. And I am not just a witness to but also an inhabitant of this brave new world, experiencing the effects of technology on myself, my children, my friends, my clients, and all others in my life. We are all facing new issues and difficulties as a result of our use of and reliance on technology. We are changing emotionally, relating to one another and ourselves in profoundly different ways than we did before the technology explosion. How we spend our time, what motivates us, what we want all are on a radical course of transformation. In many cases, the adaptations that are occurring work well for technology. By the second, technology is growing and evolving into something we cant live without. But is technology helping us humans to grow, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually? Or do we need to alter our relationship with technology so that we humans can also continue to evolve?

I observe more and more of my clients, as well as friends, family, and others, becoming dependent on their devices in order to feel complete, calm, and basically okay. Many people now need their devices and the ongoing infusion of entertainment, information, and communication that technology provides to keep themselves from feeling bored and agitated, which are now considered the normal sensations for a life that is turned off. What we expect from the present moment has changed: we are now accustomed to ongoing stimulation and feel anxious and lacking without it. There is a continual sense that we should be doing something, which then causes us to grab our smartphones to seek some relief from that anxiety. And while most people now check their smartphones 150 times per day, or every six minutes, not enough of us consider our behavior around technology to be a real problem.

Over a relatively short span of time, our use of technology has exploded smartphones, mobile devices, tablets, social and other

With the assistance of technology, we now have the ability to know, do, watch, and learn almost anything. But by indulging that ability, we have created a state in which every nook and cranny of our internal and external space is filled with stuff to do, think about, watch, listen to, know, and learn. Our internal hard drives are jammed beyond capacity with thoughts, information, and new tasks. People I meet with, work with, live with, and everything else with consistently report a great longing for space, room to breathe, time with themselves, or, as we now call it, bandwidth and yet such peace, quiet, and downtime are harder and harder to find or create. Our lives are filled with more possibilities than ever before to connect, consume, and discover all good things but in the face of these possibilities, we are also feeling less connected, less centered, and less satisfied. The digital age is an age of both too much and not enough.

How do we stay in touch with what is most important to us when were buried under hundreds of emails and texts and technological tasks each day? How do we stay in the present moment in a society that beckons us with relentless and enticing distractions? How do we maintain connection in our relationships when conversations are interrupted dozens of times and so many people are busy staring into their personal screens? Where do we find the silence and focus we need when there is almost nowhere left to escape from the chimes, bells, and vibrations that constantly invade our private spaces, when every activity is part of a larger multitasking operation? With what skills can we stay empowered and calm when we must continually figure out how to keep our technology running smoothly just so we can participate in the world? How do we hold onto a sense of tangible reality when so much of our life is virtual? And, most importantly, how do we stay grounded and connected to our deeper wisdom at this time in history, on this wild digital ride that the human race has embarked upon? How do we live peacefully with the excitement and madness and do it all without going mad ourselves?

I recently watched a woman almost run down by a taxi because she was so focused on her smartphone she didnt notice she was standing in the middle of the street. Two men pulled her out of harms way at the last moment. When she made it to the other side of the street, she got right back to her device, as if nothing had just happened. She was not fazed by the event, at least not enough to interrupt her flow of texting or even to thank the two men who saved her life. Technology is a powerful tool for communication, and yet the way we are using it and the authority we are awarding it are also making it into a powerful impediment to our sense of presence and awareness.

We are succumbing to our more primitive tendencies toward unconsciousness, going under a kind of technological anesthesia, which renders us unaware of where we actually are physically and with whom we are sharing company. Technology is dazzling us into a form of entertaining sleep, and too many of us are not yet making conscious choices about whether we agree with what is happening and in fact want to disappear from our lives.

Technology offers the potential for everything we can imagine, but when we do make the effort to get quiet, we often discover that what we really want, the most important thing, is to experience a good life, one filled with contentment, love, meaning, and depth, a life filled with rich experiences and relationships not more of everything virtually possible. Technology, as too many of us are now using it, is not leading us to a better life, not to a state of fundamental well-being.