“Oh no”, as my 2-year-old niece Susie would say. I knew what I had to do for this challenge, but I wasn’t very keen to discover what it might bring to light. It reminds me of a story I was told. A police officer saw a drunk crawling around in a pile of leaves under a streetlamp. The officer asked, “what are you doing?” “Lookin’ for some money I loshed ossifer,” came the reply. “Where did you lose it?” “Down that lane about 10 minutes ago.” came the answer, whilst pointing across the road. “Then why look here?” enquired the officer. “‘Cause there’s lotsh more light over here!”
There was no point hiding from it, I had to make my mobile my touchpoint for the day. My fear was because I know how often I am touching it; quite a lot over the last month or so. Worse still, over the last two years I have been guilty of preaching to others, especially my family, about the evil of the “attention economy”. Part of me was excited though. Could this be a way to bring mindfulness to the attention economy?
At first, the answer was a resounding no. On several occasions during the morning I found myself on the phone, completely unconsciously until I caught myself. I try hard these days to not be unkind to myself, but I was getting a bit disappointed. I needed a hack (we seem to prefer that word over cheat these days) or a reminder.
After a few failed ideas, an elastic band turned out to be my saviour! Wrapping it around the phone case worked a treat. Just enough of a barrier to trigger me to be mindful, but not so much as to be annoying. This is another of the #MindfulMay tools I will continue with. The results were still a little depressing. Unless I am fully absorbed in something, my instinct has become to reach for the phone.
Since its invention in 1845, I wonder how often the humble elastic band has been someone else’s saviour? I wonder how you got on with the day 9 touchpoint challenge?
Be happy, healthy and helpful
Paul
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