How To Be An Oven In A Microwave World

I wake up. Not all the way, just enough to know the difference between the dream world and reality.

Rolling over, I open my phone before I open my eyes.

Same thing. Every day.

I walk out into the living room. Still groggy. I flip on the TV while I wait for my brain to boot up.

Throwing on my clothes and grabbing a quick bite to eat, it's been too long. Out comes the phone again. I need to see what I've missed in the few minutes between fixes.

It's not always purposeful. In fact, it usually isn't. It is comforting, however, to be connected. On the grid. Seen.

Really, I'm just kidding myself. I've never been so alone. Virtual relationships have long since replaced real ones. Oh, I have my family and friends, but it's easier to relate to them with technology as a mediator. Face to face is too...intimate, too real.

That's really the problem though, right? Nothing is real anymore. We live in a plastic world. A universe constructed entirely from fragments of reality we have recycled and re-manufactured. The technology that connects us is more often a distraction from the truth that we have never been farther apart. Spiritually. Emotionally. Truly. We are alone.

We are slaves.

My Wake Up Call

A week after Christmas, I had a revelation. I was a phone addict. This wasn't really shocking to me. I had known for a while that my phone use was excessive. But, comparatively speaking, it was easy to justify. So, while I knew I was addicted, I didn't see it as a problem.

The events surrounding Christmas, followed by the customary time of introspection and, even more so, a relative time of upheaval in my life (we were, and still are, working through some massive life changes), created the perfect environment for drastic measures. I had become more acutely aware of the number of times I purposelessly check my phone on a given day.

It truly has become a comfort mechanism. Like I've traded in a teddy bear for a smartphone. I need it. I can't be apart from it. It has become part of me.

Not really liking the fact that my identity, to some extent, was associated with a piece of technology, and being even more disenfranchised with the massive waste of time caused by endless hours of scrolling through and consuming content, I decided to reform.

So, I deleted every app on my phone that I spent any significant amount of purposeless time using. All social media apps, gone. All games, gone. All news sources, gone.

The only things left were things I only ever use purposefully, when I have designated time for them. Apps like Audible. I never use Audible when I don't mean to be using Audible. Or fast food ordering apps. No temptation to infinite scroll through menu items, at least not for me.

The idea was to eliminate anything on my phone that could turn a quick glance into a longer period of purposeless searching.

The Problem Is Worse Than I Thought

I've solved one problem, by eliminating all temptations to turn quick glances into extended time-wasting sessions. But, another problem remains. Purposeless glances at my phone are a bad habit that I can't seem to break.

Removing all my time-wasting apps was a good start because it further exposed how many times my phone-checking habit had no justifiable end in mind. There are three apps currently on my phone that have updates worth checking. I have one fantasy football app, with a message board, a cryptocurrency exchange app and I have email.

These things can be checked very quickly and generally don't lead me into scrolling through and wasting a lot of time. But, the number of times I check these apps throughout the day, now that they are the only such apps on my phone, far outweighs the necessary amount. It has to be at least 25+ times a day. This doesn't count the times I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the time, sometimes within minutes of the last time I checked the time. It's like a time-checking vortex.

This is a problem, because I want to be the kind of person who is in control of my assets. I want to tell my money where to go and not be an excessive spender. I want to use my possessions in wise, prudent and helpful ways and not become a hoarder. And, most importantly, I don't want to waste a nano-second of time.

Time Is Running Out

Money, you can earn. Possessions, you can buy. Relationships, you can replace. Time is the one commodity that is always running out and cannot be replenished.

From the moment you were born, God stamped a time of death on your soul. The clock has been ticking ever since. Some of us are given more, some less. But, we all have the same task. Use the time you've been given to your utmost capacity and capability.

Needlessly checking my phone 20+ times a day is not using my time to my utmost capacity. Infinitely scrolling through micro-content certainly isn't the best use of the time I've been given.

So, the real question is, what will we do with the time we have.

Be An Oven

Think of the difference in quality between something baked in the oven, versus something cooked in the microwave. On almost all counts, the oven will massively outperform the microwave. The only things the microwave will cook better are the things that you should basically never allow into your body.

When I was a teenager, we had a convection oven. Basically, it was a microwave that could turn into an oven with the push of a button. My Mom was making a cake one day and, due to the size of the oven, it needed to be turned around halfway through the cycle so it would bake evenly. She asked me to flip it for her.

So, I did. The cake baked for 20 minutes, then alerted me it was time to take it out, turn it around and bake the last 20 minutes. I took it out, turned it around and started it again.

No one told me that after turning it around, you had to press the convection oven option again to activate that feature. So, for 20 minutes, I microwaved that cake.

I don't know if you've ever had a microwaved cake, but it's not good. You could build houses with the stuff it's so hard.

I say all of that, because we live in a microwave culture. Everything we do is a shortcut. As a result, we're missing out on a lot of the quality and flavor life used to hold.

Every year, for the past 8 years, I've visited Uganda, Africa. My family does humanitarian work there and we have a piece of property with a small house way out in the bush. African culture is an oven culture. Everything slows way down. This is not always positive, as even the simplest tasks tend to take an eternity. But, overall, there is a lot we could learn from the African way of life.

Coming home to America is always an adjustment. We need everything done so quickly. Urgently. Immediately. Not that speed and efficiency is bad. Certainly, it is not.

Being a slave to speed is bad.

Slaves To The Tyranny Of Urgency

I think there are 3 forces at work in modern, Western society that enslave us.

- The Tyranny Of Urgency

- The Tyranny Of Immediacy

- The Tyranny Of Recency

These forces are so compelling and so persuasive, that I would wager every one of us reading this, myself of course included, struggles with slavery to one, if not all of these.

Urgency says, "This has to be done, NOW". The strange thing about urgency is that it is often artificial. Usually, the things we think need to be done right now, in reality, they could wait. This tyranny of urgency shows up in our workplace, where we truly are slaves to deadlines that arise from up the chain, set by people who are willingly enslaved to artificial urgency.

The danger is, though, when we take it back from work into our homes and personal life. Someone calls in the middle of a good conversation and we say, "Excuse me, I have to take this". That phone call is urgent, even if it isn't.

You wake up with a to-do list on the brain and rush through the morning "connection rituals" with your spouse and kids to get to the pressing needs of the day. These things are "urgent".

Except, most often they aren't. Urgent means, this is the most important thing you need to do right now. Any time you are engaging in a high-priority activity, like connecting with your spouse over a nice relaxed breakfast, or playing with your kids before school, or having lunch with a dear friend, whatever distraction you allow to interrupt that activity should be truly urgent.

But, we have put things like text messages, phone calls, alerts and even thoughts of future plans, in the place of really urgent things. This can rob us of the connections we form in those truly important moments.

The key to escaping the tyranny of urgency is to take stock of your life and define your highest priorities. Then force yourself to make those priorities the most important things in your life. Don't allow yourself to be distracted or derailed from maximizing the moments you want to cultivate most.

The Tyranny Of Immediacy

Urgency is to doing, what immediacy is to consuming. Immediacy says, "I have to have this, now." This phenomenon can manifest itself through things like spending habits, motivations for work and, of course, how you spend your time.

The reason I check my phone 20+ times a day, despite the fact that I removed everything worth checking, is because I am addicted to immediacy. There is control there. I check my phone frequently because it's mine and I want it. Even if I don't have a good reason why.

I check the time frequently, because I lack the ability to sit in a moment and drink it in. I'm looking for the next thing. I want what I want, when I want it, even if I don't know what I want.

We are so addicted to getting what we want immediately, that we will, ironically, scroll for hours on Facebook, Twitter, or Netflix looking for more of what we want. We waste so much time trying to get what we want instantly.

Can you imagine the productivity of a society willing to work hard, work efficiently and work patiently? It wasn't that long ago when those ideals were normative culture.

The tyranny of immediacy shows up especially in entertainment addiction. I've not met very many Americans who are not addicted to entertainment. People spend lifetimes consuming content.

According to Statista, Americans spend on average nearly 7 hours a day consuming digital media. 7 hours a day!

That means, in a year, the average American has spent 106 full 24 hour days consuming digital media.

If you live to be 70, keeping that pace, you will have consumed 20 years worth of media.

According to the UN's 2017 World Mortality report, around 16% of people worldwide never make it age 25.

So, literally, if we live to be an average age, we will have used up someone's else entire life just consuming media. How can we be so frivolous with the time we are given when so many have so little? Can you imagine how much good this generation could do if we redeemed 20 years of our lives?

The Tyranny Of Recency

This one is especially hard to break. Mainly because it combines the first two into one. The tryanny of recency says, "I need to know what is new, now". It's a constant searching for new information, the latest update. We hit refresh on twitter, over and over, waiting for that new piece of information so we can be the first to know.

It makes us feel good to be in the know. We don't like it when someone says, "Did you hear about..." and we haven't. It makes us feel less than them.

But, there is immense freedom in disconnecting from the information matrix. The sense of urgency from needing to know and the sense of immediacy from needing to know now, over time can overwhelm anyone. Simply being willing to humble yourself and let others know something you don't frees you from the pressure of constantly "keeping up".

One easy way to learn this habit is to simply wait a day after some anticipated piece of news was supposed to be released. Force yourself to wait and be patient. Make your mind obey.

In short, if you want to be the kind of person who creates genuine connection with other humans, the sort that brings quality and flavor to the lives of those you touch, if you want to have influence and impact that outlives your lifespan, don't waste your life.

Be an oven.