How Crashing My Phone Taught Me 3 Important Lessons
By making me reevaluate my relationship with technology
In a word full of so much uncertainty, my phone is sometimes the only connection I have to the outside world. Every day I use it to manage my workload, communicate with friends and plan out my life — what remains of it anyway.
I love technology.
It can make life easier and help people focus on what matters without getting bogged down by all the small and inconsequential things in life. But that does not change the fact that I have let my appreciation for technology morph into an unhealthy dependent relationship.
For every good thing I can use my phone for, there is an accompanying scroll of doom through social media or a new pile of sludge emails building up in my spam folder.
The realisation that the negatives were starting to eat into the benefits I reaped from my phone should have hit a lot sooner than it did. All it took to completely knock me off my feet and into an unhinged state of lunacy was a minor technical hiccup that was entirely my fault.
It was about a year ago on a day like any other that my procrastination decided to come back to bite me hard. In the months prior, I had ignored a reoccurring notification that kept popping up on my screen.
You have run out of storage. You can upgrade it here.
It was a simple enough thing; just some routine (and — definitely — overdue) maintenance for my phone. I have gotten into the bad habit of never deleting any of the photos I take of my pets; an action that has resulted in my photo library growing to the point of exploding.
There was an easy solution if I wanted to avoid deleting any pictures and remain in my cycle of click and move on. My phone was telling me what to do. I just had to press a button and bam, problem solved; free to continue storing my memories in abundance.
I will do it, I thought.
Just not right now.
And so, the procrastination continued. I never got around to it because I always had things higher on my priority list.The only way I would ever stop and get the job done would be if someone physically forced me to.
I woke up that day to check my notifications as I always do, but as I went to open my apps, my screen froze. It was frustrating, but it was something I had dealt with before. I switched my phone off to restart and went away to go about my tasks for that morning.
When I came back a while later the restart screen was still loading. It was at that moment that my heart started to take notice of the situation. A thump started a steady beat in my chest to indicate my rising worry. I powered off my phone again and told myself not to fret. It will fix itself.
But it did not.
No amount of pleas to the universe would repair the damage done. I spent the next few hours in a whirlwind of denial, despair and anger. No matter what I did, nothing worked. Not the technical support from my phone company or the tried and tested methods of strangers on the internet could bring it back to life.
My phone was crashing because it had finally been overwhelmed with all of my stuff. Overwhelmed with all of the junk I had convinced myself was essential and had to keep around. The phone should have enabled its automatic back-up system, but I hadn’t upgraded the storage. It did not have the room to make that all-important fail-safe.
Luckily, I did have a back-up of some kind; it was just months old. If I restored my phone using it, I would lose months of my life. I was going to lose the memories I wanted the chance to relive. Moments captured on camera cut from existence; my trips to the theatre, my writing notes and all those goofy smiling pictures with my loved ones — all gone.
I am not exaggerating when I say I was completely and utterly distraught. I could have lived with the loss of everything else if I had gotten to keep my photos. Losing those pictures felt like a chunk of my life was being ripped away. I was helpless to do anything but watch teary-eyed and frozen to that terrible spot in front of the screen.
After hours of a desperate struggle with myself to revive the phone that I had unintentionally murdered, I had to face the fact that my memories were gone; doomed to live on only in my head. It all seemed so unfair. I felt like the world had wronged me in some deeply harmful way and that I deserved retribution.
But the world did not, and does not, owe me anything.
Technology is a luxury to be appreciated, not a lifeline to cling too. I had lured myself into a false sense of security. I had forgotten that my phone is no more than a tool to use for my benefit.
If I had just taken action and did what would have been an easy two-minute task, it would have saved me so much heartache. As you regularly start to ignore something, it forms a detrimental kind of muscle memory. If you continue to reinforce the habit, it will turn you into a passive participant in your own life; a fate which I am actively trying to steer clear.
To avoid having my experience sit as a sore spot in my life and to help you avoid falling into the same pitfalls I did, here are the 3 most important lessons it taught me:
1. The consequences of procrastination are not out of your control.
The longer you leave a task, the bigger and more daunting it will become. Dealing with the consequences of your actions is entirely within your control. Do not let yourself get caught up in avoidance and overthinking. To stop any fallout and minimise damage to yourself, be prepared and get the job done.
2. Boundaries do not just apply to your relationships with other people.
Setting boundaries can help you create a sustainable and healthy relationship with technology. Finding a balance between what we want and what we need in every aspect of life will help you live a more fulfilling existence.
If you find yourself getting dragged down by someone, or something, then it is time to step back and see what you want to get out of the interaction. Know when to cut your losses and walk away.
3. Live in the moment.
Whilst it can be fun to have photos of the things you experience in life to look back on, you should always remember to stay present and appreciate moments in life whilst they last.
There is nothing worse than taking a video or picture to look at later instead of actively enjoying the moment, only to find out it is gone forever. If you learn to savour the small details and truly take in your surroundings, you will never have to rely on technology to take stock of life for you.
Want to reach out? Contact me at caitlinlamontcreative@gmail.com.