:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I am a computer addict who bows down before the square, glowing screen of my lap top. It’s my portal into creativity, friendships, and information. Sometimes it’s hard to step away from it, to remove its life by powering it down, and to clamp it shut.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Noticing my addiction had grown worse with my attempt to make a go of full time freelance writing, I took action during Lent. While I couldn’t completely cut myself off from the computer, I developed an action plan.

6 PM and Sunday Cut Off

At 6 PM each night I shut down my computer and closed the screen. I even put a book or some papers on top of it so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Laugh at me if you must, but I know some of you can relate. On Sundays I left the computer closed  up, not even touching it.

It was freeing at first, but toward the last week of Lent I had a few projects running that demanded some immediate attention in order to meet deadlines. Since my main goal was to avoid mindlessly flipping through blogs and social media sites, I gave myself a few passes to send crucial e-mails and to visit some work-related sites.

Overall, I realized that while I’m driven to work hard and don’t mind long hours, I tend to work myself into the ground and to burn out while frittering my time away on social media. Setting aside a few hours in the evening as a safe zone helped me stay up on dishes, laundry, and other household stuff while also making me more available to hang out with my wife when she wasn’t working on a paper for grad school. I even had some time to read a book or magazine for leisure.

Imagine that!

In addition, I never missed anything all that important be limiting my time online. That’s still a tough one to believe despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Worship in the Morning

The other part of my Lent that is still a work in progress was my morning worship time. This involved sitting to journal some thoughts and listening to some worship music for about 20 minutes. I often did something else while listening to the music. On the days I forgot to take this time, I noticed a huge different in my attitude and in my overall approach to my day.

It is wonderful to sit, to wait for God to come, and to spend time in his presence. When I rush into my day without that, things can go downhill quickly. Jesus described himself as a vine that we are connected to as branches. We don’t stay connected by  saying a prayer once. Remaining in Jesus is a daily practice.

What’s Next…

I’ll keep working on the morning worship time. I’m not calling it devotions because my time in scripture is separate from this. I need time to be reoriented by scripture, but I also need time to sit, listen, and praise him. I’m going to generally adhere to the 6 PM and Sunday cut off, but I’ll give myself more generous allowances if need be.

In the process of working on this, I’ve discovered that I’m particularly obsessed with checking my e-mail. I think it took hold during my last dead-end job. I’d check my e-mail constantly because the interactions with people outside of my workplace helped preserve my sanity—reminding me that my dysfunctional employer was not the norm. Now that I’m freelancing full time I need to break the e-mail-checking habit.

Checking my e-mail has turned into a control and obsession problem in which I can’t stand the thought that an important e-mail could be waiting for me. Whether or not that e-mail is there, and it frequently isn’t, I need to let go of that control. I’m thinking of setting up 3-4 e-mail checking times throughout my day.

What did you give up for Lent?

What were benefits?

What’s next?

I’m going to keep working on taking