It's been two and a half years since I turned off my email. Every day I check it. I leave it on at all hours and wait for that little "ding" sound the phone makes to let you know that something has come - something urgent - something needing me, now!
I keep that little black phone near me all the time for fear that a big emergency will arise and I will not be the first to see it, respond to it, know about it. If I go more than 5 minutes without checking my phone I frantically search for it, certain that there will be many, many notifications. For what? Of what? I don't know.
But for two and half years I have not disabled my work email. It's been attached to me wherever and whenever I go. But last week, I turned it off. I took it off my phone completely, if only for a little while...
And it was scary.
The moment I did it I wondered - what if someone needs me? what if there is a question no one else can answer? what if there is an emergency? I thought through every scenario and in the end, just got too tired to think any more.
And you know what? It's been a week and a half without my work email, and the world has not stopped turning. Life has gone on just just just fine. And I guess it all makes you realize how indispensable we all really are. Not inconsequential, just indispensable.
Perhaps it's our egos that make us believe that we are that needed and that we are wanted. Perhaps it's just our need to feel wanted. Perhaps it's our belief that if we control things then we don't have anyone to blame but ourselves if they go awry.
I don't know, again - it's just too much thinking...
But this is the first time that I have been cut off from work completely and it's a strange, strange feeling...and I'll tell you one thing - it' gives a LOT of time for thinking about other things.
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