LiveDifferent Challenge (6): Unplugged

Sorry I’m late … yesterday got away from me and I realized this morning I never posted the LiveDifferent Challenge (6). This idea has been creeping around my mind, but I was never sure how to nail it down until this morning. It originated from my sister-in-(love) Nikki, who committed to a Mental Detox fast for one week, where she shut off her laptop, cell phone, and TV (they don’t have one, but that was part of deal), and lived “unplugged” for one week. I thought it was really cool, but couldn’t do the same seeing that I use my laptop for all of my schoolwork (and finals are this week so that would have meant flunking out of seminary 🙂 But I was really challenged by this and she recently posted her “after thoughts” on their blog (CLICK TO READ HERE).

The thing that personally challenged me the most was the realization this week that email is truly the lowest form of communication. And you have no idea how tragic this is to me! As a writer, I LOVE email. I can email/write my thoughts WAY easier than I can articulate them on the phone or in person. I have “penpals” who I keep in contact with regularly through email. But I’ve also experienced firsthand how miscommunications can happen so easily. We know that more than 90% of communication is through non-verbal cues…so when those aren’t there, how easy it is to “imagine” our own non-verbals and messages can be misconstrued. Just yesterday I was communicating with a person about some business and I got back the response and thought, “Oh my goodness! That is the rudest thing!” I responded kindly and never heard back, but it made me feel all yucky inside. Perhaps if we had communicated on the phone some of that yuckiness could have been avoided. This is a challenge to me …

But what I’m considering this week is how great things can truly be acccomplished when we lay aside the “stuff.” Jeff told me how Mark Driscoll (a pastor we both admire) “unplugs” one day a week in order to work on his book (laptop stays on but wireless is turned off). Just as Nikki wrote in her reflection–play times with kids, rocking to sleep, picnics outside, baking cookies, reading good literature, reading the paper, talking with one’s spouse, dreaming for the future, reading the Word. So much good can be done if we streamlined our lives a little, if we “unplugged” just long enough to remember we live in a beautiful reality that is greater than any cyberworld created by man.

What is it you want to do? I want to write a book (2 actually). So my challenge to you and to myself is to take one day this week (and every week if you’re up for it) and unplug. Turn off your cell, disable your wireless (or close your laptop entirely) and work on something worthwhile–whether a relationship with another person or with God, whether reading something valuable, taking time to enjoy the beauty around you, or just spending time with God in prayer. Embrace this world, the beautiful world or nature and creatures that God put around us. Cyberspace cannot hold a candle to the sensory paradise around us. And decide, what do I really want to do? What do I want to do that I’d have time for if I streamlined my life a little…? Take the plunge, and unplug…just for a day.