Imagine a scenario where you are on a bus with a friend. It’s a daily commute and recently they’ve been quite distracted. They’re fairly online and sometimes have headphones on. You try initiating conversations, sharing how you’re feeling and checking in. But lately they don’t seem very interested in what you have to say or how you feel.

You know you have value in their life because they’ve constantly relied on you to get them through the day. But that still doesn’t stop them ignoring you from time to time. Yet you choose to always be there for them. Frankly, without you, your friend wouldn’t make it. They just don’t realize how much they need you.

One such day, you find that something is very wrong with them. Something related to their health that has them on edge. But instead of dealing with it, they’re choosing to distract themselves and ignoring it. You have the foresight to know what’s coming and you try to warn them. But something strange is going on. Every time you try to warn them, this strange tone fills their ears. Like they’re deaf to you. You warn them over and over again. Poke them, prod and even try to shake them up a little. But they seem completely oblivious.

Deep down you begin to realize, they won’t stop until it’s very late and the damage has been done.

And suddenly you collapse. Now they look at you, and they are visibly and rightfully scared. If only they had looked up, stopped and listened.

——

Now if this exchange sounds dramatic to you, you must be new to my work. I’m just embracing what comes up and this scenario is one between a person and their body. Now take a minute and reread it.

I grant you. This is not the most common scenario but it also isn’t unheard of. Have you recently pushed past a warning your body gave you to either work, or continue pushing yourself in some other way?

If you haven’t, kudos. If you have, well you’re not alone.

The scenario stands on its own and I’m not writing this post to give advice about work-life balance and where to draw the line between pushing your body for a priority versus listening to it. That’s for each of you to decide and if I ever look into it deeper, I will share some insights should I feel the need to.

But the whole listening to your body concept. I can certainly tell you how I go about it (when I actually do it). I can tell you I’m trying to do it more and more.

Yesterday I meditated after a long time. And I’d actually forgotten all the old feelings it brought with it. See I remember doing it by myself for the longest time before I met my wife or had dogs. But even then distractions would creep in, and I would find ways to turn my attention momentarily, acknowledge that my thought had drifted and then slowly find my way back. That, I have learned is the whole point of meditation. With a puppy bouncing around me yesterday, I had to do the process multiple times as she tried to settle down around me over the 20 minutes of meditation. Which is the length of my meditation playlist. For you gamers, I meditate to select songs from the The Last of Us pt2 soundtrack.

For 20 minutes, my eyes were closed, I focused on my breathing, and I paid attention to the sensations through my body and the external surroundings but always came back to the breathing.

Now in contrast I think of if I had spent that time online or scrolling. That same amount of time would have flown by so fast and with so little insignificance, I could not categorize it as anything other than time wasted.

Today, instead of scrolling on the weekend morning which as I told myself in the past is a harmless weekend morning ritual. I listened to some music. Which I know doesn’t sound like some big behavior-breaking technique. But I genuinely just sat down and put on some music and listened to it. And I don’t mean as a side activity while I was doing dishes or cleaning. Just listening. And I can honestly say it made a difference.

Can’t recall how long I sat there but I’m glad I did. And that will just be another way I spent a little less time online.

See I’ve noticed about human behavior that when we see someone slowing down consciously, it goes against some inner law that we are following. A law that says getting more things done in a short period of time is a good thing. Like the feeling you get when you carry all the grocery bags in one trip. Like instead of watching a 2-hour video on trees, you would rather watch 50 reels on 50 different things. Because that jumping from one thing to the other has somehow become the norm instead of slowing down and doing one thing for a significant period So that it may have some meaningful impact on our life.

My dad always told me – Carry one thing with two hands. Not two things with one hand.

And I see it more and more. I am conscious of the limited time I have and I don’t feel that urge to fill it up with as much content and experiences as possible. Rather I try to focus on the quality of those experiences. Stopping to ask why am I doing this and if I even want to do this?

Do you do things just because everyone around you is doing them? Do you ever stop and listen internally if you even want to be a part of that crowd? It’s not easy. I will give you that. Social acceptance is the weak medicine we all think sustains us. I can honestly tell you without even knowing you, you are very unique and it might just be holding you back.

If there is something you would like to take from this, find something you like doing and for a short moment of time, do only that. Think about it as you do it. The effect it has on you. Why you love it. And how you feel given that you have allowed yourself the time to do it.

I hope it changes your day and your perspective, like it does for me.

A lot has changed. In the time it takes me to write this, more will have changed. It’s been awhile since I’ve had an urge to write, but if I do not write this down, I will collapse internally.

I can think of days not long ago when evenings meant you were done with school, and it was time to go outside and meet friends. There were rarely any agendas. You would just meet up and wander sometimes. I don’t remember the conversations, but I do remember the freedom. I also remember the simplicity of it all. There was no urgent need, only a human one that was fulfilled day by day. There were tears, anger, but also laughter and a feeling like there was nothing we couldn’t do. 

Soon after, I started posting on Facebook. I felt the urge to be funny because more reactions, more LOLs, more engagement felt like the goal. I would look up jokes and funny one-liners and hoped that they might elevate my standing amongst an imagined group of online friends and relatives. Like people were waiting to read what I wrote and judge me and had nothing else going on.

In university, I tried Snapchat. It was new and interesting. Messages disappearing. Random moments taken as photos and added to your story. Like the person across campus needed to know that you were bored in a class. Then there were streaks. Share photos everyday and feel accomplished but don’t miss a day because then all your imagined accomplishments are revealed to have only ever been imaginary. Bits and data that made you feel happy. It wasn’t enough to enjoy a coffee; it had to serve a higher purpose. I too was part of it. Had a streak that lasted almost 4 months and then traveling across time zones and inability to access the internet messed it up. I remember calling Snapchat and trying to get them to fix it. At the moment it felt so important. Now it doesn’t.

Then Facebook stopped being cool and Instagram was the new thing. TikTok, Instagram and even apps like YouTube started to feature short form content. Watch something for 10 seconds to 30 seconds and go to the next and then the next. An unending stream of content that would let you drown in it, if you couldn’t check yourself. Photos, hashtags, reels or shorts became the new way. If you had something to say, put it in a reel. Dance to it. Add the latest song. Get someone trending to share it. At some point, for many, many people it became the norm. Like something on Instagram? Make your feed look like it. Always drive social engagement further. More likes, more shares, more comments. Pay to become verified. Like digging ourselves deeper and deeper and deeper into a hole.

I was never much on Twitter but I heard enough about it. Before you could tweet things, now there’s X. Thousands and thousands of bots. Just algorithms punching out text, retweeting things, shifting and molding opinions all over the place.

It was a scary thought that you could have had a conversation over the Internet, and had no way to know that there was an actual human on the other side.

And now, AI. ChatGPT, Gemini, Co-pilot, Deepseek, picture and video generators that can create almost anything you can think of. Language models filling gaps in knowledge but also mimicking human behavior. Try typing – “I’m having a bad day. Can you be a supportive friend” in Chat GPT? You’ll have an amazing conversation, it’ll feel like talking to a therapist. Even though it will openly claim that it cannot provide therapy. Throw any dilemma at it and you’ll get a well-tailored response in the tone you want. I’ve tried it out. You can ask it to act like an angry friend who wants you to get off the couch and start working out. It can take on the personality and manner of a video game character who motivates you to go into work every day. We are just starting out and already, the capabilities feel limitless.

I often experience this phenomenon and I’m curious if any of you do as well. The apps I most use are Instagram, YouTube and sometimes Facebook. I’ll find that I’ve spent the last 20 minutes just scrolling, and I need to do something else. So I’ll close the app. Move around somewhere else on the phone. And then just open it right back up as a reflex. Like muscle memory. Those are scary moments. No one is watching and no one is going to condemn me for reopening Instagram but somehow I feel conditioned to do it. Like it’s where I go to get my fix. That used to be books.

The internet has been a boon, I could never deny that. I wouldn’t be able to talk to my family daily, share photos if it wasn’t for the internet. But, at this point I’m just overwhelmed and anxious.

For the longest time I was plain ignorant. If something didn’t affect me, I didn’t need to think about it. It’s an easy way to live. But you also live a shrouded life. And that’s fine if you want that. But it doesn’t work for me anymore.

Because it’s starting to affect me. The endless cycle of forwarding, sharing and non-stop refreshing of feeds feels like it’s going to consume the best parts of my life. Entire hours spent moving my thumb, acting like I’m doing something, when really I’m doing nothing. If you’re one of those people who use the internet wisely and in moderation, I wholeheartedly commend you. That is my goal now.

I’ve never written about this before. If you’ve been reading my work, it is usually more introspective and emotional. This is an outlier. But if I ignore how much this affects me, then that impacts my ability to sit with myself and think. Because I do that less and less now. Instead my phone is at arm’s reach. And millions of people, are posting things that I will find funny or cute. But so much of it isn’t real.

And it’s scary that it’s getting hard to tell what’s good and important versus what’s unnecessary and unhealthy. I see a video of an old man who makes content teaching young people about skills Dad’s traditionally taught them. Like jumping starting a car, checking your car’s oil, home construction tips. Which is amazing for someone who didn’t learn that from their parents. That is something I enjoy watching.

But I’m sure you don’t need me to list the vast amount of useless short form content that floods our lives daily. How do we separate it? I don’t know. And my current answer is just to back away from most of it. I don’t know how that will go. If there is something to write, I will write about it in the days to come.

My posts are often hopeful. So I will add this – I don’t think everything is lost. We used to be more aware of what we were doing. Or if we ever lost ourselves it was in places of nature or books or even the pursuit of a passion. I think that still exists. But we are so easily misled and blinded. It is now a conscious willful effort to step out and consider our actions and intentions online.

We must ask.

What is the purpose of this? Why are we doing this? Is it just because we want to or do we now need to?

Are screens our path to contentment and fulfillment? Are we lying to ourselves about how much it affects and controls our life?

Are we happy being swept away in it all because it is easy? It is effortless. It is muscle memory. Is it all we know? What would the alternative be?

I think taking control of every minute of every day would scare us. The possibilities would be limitless. And we have become sadly limited by what was meant to connect and further us all.

If I have made you stop and think, I am glad. I am stopping and thinking too.