Right in front of you

Your real life is right in front of you. It’s happening right now, all around you. Every day, every hour brings a new view, a new opportunity for you to truly live while you’re alive. Whether that means creativity, productivity, entertainment, socializing, or rest & relaxation is up to you in the moment. How will you choose to live your life? Will you see what’s right in front of you before it’s gone?

The name of my blog came from a book called The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams. Toward the end of the book, she recounts a story of a father taking his tween/teen sons to an observatory. They take a long elevator ride to the top so they can see the expansive park below. When the elevator doors open, the boys run straight to the interactive screens and 3D renderings of the park landscape. The father is left standing alone at the giant observation windows, repeating "It's right there! It's all right there! Everything is right in front of you!" This felt like a wake-up call to me when I first read it. It’s so simple, yet so hard to do - stop interacting with the world through screens, buttons, and swipes. Come back to the physical world around you.

What is it about screens and technology that instantly pulls us in? Why do we ignore what’s right in front of us in favor of scrolling, clicking, and consuming? I think we all know by now that we’re seeking dopamine hits when we pull out our phones. We’re looking for the low-hanging fruit, the easy & quick way to please our brains and escape boredom. We treat boredom as an unbearable punishment that needs to be avoided at all costs. More and more, everyday occurrences are labeled “boring” and become the enemy - things that we used to tolerate much more easily. Things like eating a snack at the kitchen counter, waiting in line to check out, even going to the bathroom for 2 minutes are suddenly impossibly boooooring to us. Our brains have been trained to kill the boredom with little dopamine bullets: 5-second reels, tiktoks, FYP recommendations, FB notifications, even the Duolingo owl raging at you. Anything your phone can serve you is better than dealing with whatever’s in front of you, right?

I know I sound pretty negative here, but I will try to pivot to positivity shortly. Our collective phone addiction is reaching crisis mode. In the last few years, I’ve noticed my family and friends retreat even further into their problematic behaviors, often without even being aware of it. I’ve had friends pull out their phones mid-conversation and start scrolling Instagram. Family members lament that they don’t have any hobbies or skills but spend hours a day playing games on their phones. Neighbor kids leave for college and don’t know how to make friends on campus (or even worse, don’t want to). I’ve even seen people complain that their Uber driver had the audacity to attempt small talk with them. Human interaction is seen as painful and awkward, another thing to be avoided whenever possible. Anything that gets in the way of you and your phone is called “friction”. We don’t want friction (or so they tell us). Friction makes life harder and therefore less enjoyable. Reduce the friction, increase the dopamine, and be happy. No more awkward conversations, wait time, or difficult tasks that require you to use your brain a bit. Life on easy mode.

And yet, we’re not that happy, are we?

We’re all tired. We’re all stressed out. We all have ADHD or some form of attention problems. Want to know what else we all have in common? Phones. Social media accounts. Notifications. FOMO. These all go hand-in-hand, a vicious cycle of mental health issues and micro-doses of dopamine as a quick fix. All these tiny hits of pleasure and fun add up to a dopamine overload though. We’ve become desensitized to it after having 24/7 access to it. We seek more, bigger, better, shinier, extraordinary things to compensate for our higher dopamine tolerances. As the internet continues to pump out new content to steal our attention, the real world becomes duller, smaller, quieter, and therefore “boring”. Some of us are so far down this path that it’s almost impossible to engage in real life anymore; but it can be reversed. We can come back and (I’m gonna say it again) enjoy what’s right in front of us.

Coming back to reality takes time and intentionality. You can’t just turn off your phone and expect to suddenly be all-in in the real world again. Moving slowly through each step of the process ensures you’re making each move purposefully, and therefore you’ll be more likely to stay committed to it. I’ve come up with 8 general tips you can use to reclaim your physical life from the digital world.

1. Stop the inflow - First things first, you do need to turn off your phone sometimes. We are being blasted with a nonstop stream of content from our devices. The easiest way to stop this is so simple: turn off your phone. Seriously, when was the last time you actually powered off your phone? Try it this evening and notice how quiet everything becomes. When your turn your phone back on, take the time to edit your settings. Toggle off notifications (I guarantee 99% of the apps on your phone do not need to send you notifications at all). Unsubscribe to emails, delete social media accounts, unfollow influencers, etc. without reservations. Cancel subscriptions to streaming services, gaming apps, even some grocery services (once you’re living in the present more, you’ll know when you need more toilet paper - you won’t need a subscription to order it for you). Turn your life off of autopilot mode.

   
   

2. Notice where you are - Literally, where are you right now? Notice the room around you or the details of the outdoor space. What are you doing? If you got distracted as you were working on a task, visualize yourself completing the task. Talk yourself through each step out loud. Why are you here? Not only do you need to know what it is that you’re doing, but you also need to know why you’re doing it. Think about your goals for the day and what you want to accomplish. Notice the sense of fulfillment you feel when you do something important or go somewhere special. Who are you with? Surround yourself with people who uplift you. Notice quirks and details about them you’ve never noticed before, or maybe you forgot about. Intentionally set aside more time for in-person interactions. When will you get this opportunity again? Soak in this moment while you’re living in it. Realize that (as cheesy as it sounds) this day will be over soon and you’ll never get it back. Pay attention to how it makes you feel, what really matters, and what comes next.

   
   

3. Seek pleasure from reality - Find one or two things in the present moment that make you smile or bring you a little joy. It could be a photo you like on the living room wall, a silly souvenir your spouse brought back from a business trip, or the lingering smell of your loved one’s perfume. If you can’t find anything, create your own happiness - light a candle, crack a joke with someone, open the window, put on a soft or colorful shirt. Rewire your brain to seek dopamine hits from real-life input rather than digital content.

   
   

4. Set up your environment for success - Turn your cell phone into a landline phone by keeping it in a designated spot in your house at all times. Only use it at that spot! Set physical boundaries and time constraints elsewhere, such as leaving your phone in the car when running errands or enforcing a “no phones after 8 PM” rule. Make your home beautiful in whatever way is beautiful to you, so you enjoy looking at it more than your phone. Sign up for activities that get you out of the house and hold you accountable to show up. Book those weekend trips and mini vacations to keep yourself busy and moving. Put hobby materials out in plain sight around the house so you can pick them up whenever the mood strikes.

   
   

5. Engage the senses - Use your hands for something other than swiping, like baking or even folding laundry. Pay attention to textures & sensations. Be okay with being uncomfortable - a little too hot or too cold, running an errand without headphones, getting up early and fighting the urge to lay down. Focus on one sense at a time. For example, actually taste what you’re eating instead of mindlessly snacking while scrolling. Notice the presence or absence of something (music, smells, clutter around the house, etc.). Switch up the scenery by doing the same task in a different room, or even outside. Move again in 30 minutes to keep it interesting and fresh.

   
   

6. Be living and present - This is the opposite of multitasking. Remind yourself of what you’re doing and why. Try to commit the present moment to memory. Give the physical world your undivided attention for as long as you can. Nothing else outside of the little bubble you’re in really matters at this moment. Take a few seconds to reconnect with your body: feel your chest rise & fall as you breathe, notice the weight of each step, relax any tensed muscles. You are a living, breathing human, engaging with everything around you.

   
   

7. See FOMO & boredom as positive things - Push past the urge to end the boredom; challenge yourself to stay with it for just 10 more seconds. Then try 30 seconds. Then try 60 seconds. Learn to enjoy hearing about things after they’ve happened. List things you can do when you’re bored that don’t involve your phone. For example, when you’re waiting in line for coffee, try adding up the cost for all of the items on the menu or seeing how many different brands you notice on everyone’s clothes. Boredom often sparks creativity if you just wait it out a little longer. When you’re feeling FOMO, try flipping the script. Maybe it’s everyone else that should be feeling FOMO! Picture a world in which others are jealous of your daily routines. Imagine you’re a celebrity showing your life to an invisible crowd - this makes it more fun & glamorous to do things like dusting, walking the dog, and finishing a jigsaw puzzle. Pretend you’re the main character!

   
   

8. Begin the outflow - Lastly, it’s important to recognize that stopping the inflow is only half the battle. You can’t successfully break a phone addiction without replacing it as a source of dopamine release. Instead of scrolling, you can get your fix through outflow - what you put out into the world. We all express ourselves in endless different ways: physically making things, writing/speaking/singing, artwork, acts of service, being productive (through work, building, making meals, etc.), home décor, personal style. The more you explore self-expression and your creativity, the more satisfaction it gives you. Eventually it will become more exciting and rewarding than anything your phone could offer you. Try to live a life that is more expressive than receptive, more output than input.

How will you choose to live your life? Will you see what’s right in front of you before it’s gone?