Thoughts on Returning
Something that always strikes me as I return from an international trip is how little I missed from my digital diet; or, perhaps, how important it is to monitor and question my digital diet back home. Is it really necessary to check in on political minutiae or the latest tedtalk or what twitter is talking about everyday? No. Many people scrutinize and limit the kinds or amounts of food they put into their mouth for the goal of feeling and looking great/healthy. Shouldn't we be doing the same for our digital diet? Surely a bag of potato chips isn't going to ruin multiple days of eating whole, healthy foods - just as 15 minutes spent looking at instagram isn't going to ruin an hour of reading an enlightening book. It's the aggregate of the habits that matter. A good check in, I think, is to mentally add up the digital junk food you consume in a week; over the course of the week, was it worth it? An hour a day doesn't sound like much, but doesn't 7 hours during a week? Maybe some of that time could have been spent checking, shoring up, and turning focus to the relationships - the things that, for me, absolutely matter most. Travel is great for seeing new things; being immersed in a different world. It is also so helpful in getting out of your habitual life and looking back, from afar, what is necessary and what isn't.