April 7th 2012
As I have struggled to honor the series of rules I
set in place for myself this week, I have come to realize that the people
around me have shared this project and the difficulties that come with it. I
have had to change the way that I communicate, eat and even hang out with
people. It is hard because I do not like causing difficulties for my friends,
and throwing off our "groove." I am guilty of breaking some of rules
to appease my friends or to keep from being a hassle. Things like riding the
shuttle at night, or buying a quick bite to eat when my roommate and I were
lost and hungry or even the debacle of trying to communicate with out my phone.
This is not to say that I have not succeeded in abiding by most of my rules, but
I do realize how hard it would be to live like this all the time; It would
hinder the way you work, spend time with friends and spend free time, it really
would change your lifestyle and make it extremely hard to have a social life in
todays society, not to mention going through with the extra effort to find
legit "green things" and ways of living.
But then, I have to look at the flip side of this project and realize
that I have actually focused on parts of my life that are usually neglected,
like quality time with friends, studying, and my own happiness. Since there has
been less distractions for me this week, I have found that I have gotten so
much more out of my conversations with friends because I stayed off my Facebook
or my phone while we were speaking. And since I was more focused on my
counterparts in conversations, I think it was appreciated and sometimes they
even put away their phones and we had some great times. My studying time may
not have increased but I feel like I got way more out of it! Again, fewer
distractions meant more focus, which was eye-opening for me, to realize that I
can learn a lot more when I don't give into my desires to hop on Facebook. I
even found that I enjoyed reading the philosophy readings that I usually dread,
because i allowed myself to become engrossed in the subject with out breaking
my line of thought. My final revelation from today was that I am really
enjoying writing my letters and doing my daily walks/runs outside. I have
written to my grandparents, an old neighbor who used to babysit me, and a
friend attending college out in Arizona. These letters make me feel like I am
making a real effort to make contact with these people instead of just leaving
a voicemail. I think it will mean a lot to the older people I write who once
only communicated with letters before cellphones and the Internet. I am hoping
that I get a letter or two back because I think it would be fun to start a
correspondence via the mail system.
So far this project has been hard, and I have not exactly followed all
of my own rules, but I still feel as though I am making a difference by trying
and by seeing how it feels to live “sustainably.”
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ReplyDeleteFirst off, I complete agree with your conclusion, that this experiment or life-style change would be hard to maintain permanently. However, I was surprised by the reactions of your friends, because my friends have been behind me 100%( after they got through with laughing.) In fact, they kept me from caving several time, by literally taking food off my plate, or waking me up to go exercising. Sometimes I too felt like I was disrupting the flow, but they humored me. Although, if I decided to keep this up they probably won't. Also, I agree that giving up technology kind of keeps you out of the loop, especially since everyone puts information out that way. I had to tell three of my professor, that communicate through Facebook, to contact me by email for the week and I missed out on three invitation! But in all honesty the could have called, so I feel like technology keeps people connected superficially, because I had no problem keeping up with all of my close friends. The only problem I had was communicating with my family, because they live so far away. You mentioned that the absence of technology made your conversation more meaningful, but for me it made them less so. Usually I talk to my family on Skype(at least every other day) but I'm having a hard time communicating effectively without seeing them. Which has led me to wonder if I'm using technology as a crutch to my communication skills. Do you think people use technology use technology like Facebook as a handicap? Possibly to communicate with other people more easily, or in lieu of face-to-face interactions? I really enjoyed you post and will continue to follow for the rest of the experiment; however, how are the other aspects going? Are you still running, and vegan?
ReplyDeleteHello Chenoa,
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting on my blog! I appreciate it very much. First off, I want to say that my friends were pretty supportive, but some of them did not always know about my project and my limitations got in the way of our plans at times. Mostly because I failed to plan accordingly to my own rules.
Secondly, you asked about technology, mainly Facebook being used as a crutch for social interaction. While I agree with you that it changes the way we interact with each other, I also think it is a great tool to use. It is how I stay in touch with my friends who live far away, it is a forum where we can completely be ourselves. While it is not traditional, who is to say that it is not a quality interaction, maybe its just a new type of interaction in a new era? But yes, at times I know what you mean, it sucks us all in to another world!
And thirdly, I found that my communication with my family was more precious after my phone died and I could only reach them by e-mail. (my mom is not quite skype proficient yet! hahah) So for several days I did not get to hear their voice and then when I got my phone and I could finally hear them, it was such a relief!!