People find every excuse not to do things; We want short cuts and to avoid even the slightest discomfort. Taking the easy way out may seem beneficial at the time, but where does a life time of this behavior find you?
How frustrated do you get when you can’t reach a friend on their cell phone? How angry are you when the guy in front of you is driving 45 in a 55 mph zone? Increases in anger and aggression are the result of the current lazy life style. We can command email, information, and entertainment all with the touch of a finger! We are king! It is easy to see how this mindset leads you to fits of anger when the smallest thing does not go your way.
As the old saying goes “If you want to do it you will find a way, if not you will find an excuse.” I have been guilty of this in the past. Where it is easier to explain why we have not done things, we will surely choose that option over actually doing them. Why should I do something someone/something else can do? The personal value of hard work has been lost; As our daily tasks become easier, easy tasks become hard and hard tasks are nearly impossible! Weight gain and body aches can be attributed to an accidentally sedentary way of life. Why should you bend over to pick up that piece of lint if you can just vacuum it? Who needs to scrub the shower when you can press a button and have a device spurt out fluids that clean everything on their own? Fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of chronic and unexplainable pain many doctors attempt to treat today. Could it just be that our bodies never got the workout they needed?
We don’t know how to NOT be entertained. From smart phones to tablet PC’s we always have something to set our mind to. If you are waiting in the lobby you use your phone to check tweets, if you are sitting in a boring meeting you use your laptop to check email, if you are supposed to be working on a presentation and you hit a mental block you go on YouTube and watch cat videos. It is no wonder adult attention deficit disorders (ADD/ADHD) have seen a rise in recent years. How often do you get online with a purpose, decide to ‘quickly’ check your email or hop on Facebook first, and then completely forget what your initial reason for getting on the internet was? It happens to the best of us. These habits also contribute to sleepless nights, as our brain refuses to cut off when it feels it should be constantly entertained.
My advice? Start going what you THINK is the extra mile (when really it is just above the bare minimum of work you may currently be doing). Start by declaring one day a week technology free. Finish strong by picking up that piece of lint on the floor instead of walking past it, getting all of your housework done in one day, or even cooking an entire meal. These may seem like menial things, but after you do them you will feel a sense of pride you may find your life has been lacking. After a while these behaviors will become much easier and you may even realize you needed to detoxify yourself of the plugged-in world. Better sleep, easier movement, and a happier life could only be ‘avoiding a mouse click’ away.