Pulling the bits and pieces together...

I’m embarking on a little experiment. I, like many of you, have been feeling really fragmented lately – pulled in too many different directions, and wondering at the end of each day, “Where did the hours go?”.

There are lots of things I love to do, and I’ve been indulging in many of them over the past few days: long walks in the woods with my dog, writing, cooking yummy things from scratch, having friends and family over for dinner.

And then there are the days that just feel eaten up by little technological moments, like the hour I spent dinking around on facebook last night before bed. This had the dual purpose of wasting an hour of my time AND firing up my neural synapses so my dreams were weird and disjointed. Not good.

I also spend a lot of time swapping voice mail messages with people rather than actually talking to them. So our relationships become tiny sound bites instead of connections of substance. That feels pretty poopy, too.

And the last thing is, I’m feeling the need to get back in touch with my grounding – I’ve been looking to others a lot lately for advice, and it’s time to turn inside to the wise critter that is me. I read this quote by Eve Ensler and it just grabbed me:

“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars… Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back.”

I need to do more of those things, at least in the metaphysical sense.

So here’s what I’m doing: for the rest of the year, I’m going on a technology diet. What this means for me:

* I’m ditching facebook until 2010.

* I’m cutting back on my social phone calls (friends of mine, stop snorting. I know I’ve never been a phone person, but you get my drift).

* I’m cutting back on TV (one hour per day max)

* No more random googling of ex-boyfriends, myself, or questions best answered by god/goddess/universal truth (such as “why am I here?”. I have googled that. You have too, admit it. )

So if I’m dieting, that implies hunger. To fill me up:

* 1000 words of writing every day.

* 10 minutes (minimum) of meditation every day.

* Walking and/or showshoeing daily, weather dependent.

* Home-cooked meals. Hot things, not just breakfast cereal.

* A retreat over Thanksgiving to the hermitage.

This is the plan. I’m announcing it here because I know you’ll hold me to it, and mock me shamelessly if you find me on facebook killing hours.

I don’t want to kill any more time. I want to live it, inhabit it.

 

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