Hello, everyone. I hope Daylight Saving didn’t throw off your internal clock too much. On Saturday, I was like, “Daylight Saving? Bring it on. Spring forward one hour. What’s the big deal?”
And today, I’m thinking, “What f*cking year is it, and why do I feel jetlagged?”
Since we’re all adjusting to the new time (and a new week), I thought a short story titled Zoned Out would be fitting. It’s actually a chapter from my upcoming book titled We’re All Just Doing Our Best. It should be available any week now, and I’ll keep you posted when I have a firm date.
Quick update: I’ve decided to delay picking a winner from the ongoing contest. Someone WILL win the $444 Soul Discovery session, but I’m giving everyone until March 25th to tell family, friends, and coworkers so that nobody misses out on this unprecedented opportunity. To be eligible to win, you must become a paid subscriber to this newsletter. And even if you don’t win the drawing, you might choose to stick around for the content I promise to keep posting. Without further delay, here’s the sample chapter from my upcoming book…
Zoned Out
When I pick my daughter up from school, I can’t help but notice that each parent is staring at their cell phone while waiting in the car line. All of them. Every. Single. One. There was a time I saw a man looking out of his front windshield. I wondered if he was admiring the sky or looking for birds overhead. I was briefly inspired by his ability to live in the present moment. Turns out, he was merely in the process of sneezing. After plastering his windshield in spit and mucus, he wiped some excess snot from his nose and held his phone up to his face like everyone else.
Given that every man, woman, and child spends a good chunk of each day staring at a screen, it would be a great time to be gainfully employed as a professional thief. Think about it. Nobody is paying attention to their surroundings. I bet I could stick my arm through the passenger window and steal a woman’s purse from the front seat without her even noticing. She’d be too preoccupied with TikTok dance videos to see me.
Of course, I wouldn’t attempt this stunt, for it would result in a lose-lose situation. If I was caught in the act, she would call the police. If I managed to get away with it, I’d feel bad and give the purse back to her… at which point she’d still call the police. I don’t need that type of inconvenience, nor do I want a guilty conscience. So, it seems that my career as a crook is over before it even started.
The school pick-up zone is an interesting subculture. Parents wait in the designated area every school day for up to thirty minutes. Over five days, that equals two and a half hours per week. I eventually started to wonder if I could do something else with my time in the parking lot. I began watching TED Talks on my phone rather than funny cat videos. Instead of responding to Facebook comments, I started viewing inspirational clips about living in the moment.
I then wondered if watching a video about living in the moment was preventing me from actually living in the moment. Ultimately, I was doing the same thing as everyone else. I was zoned out and hypnotized by my screen, held captive by an addictive device that falsely promised a sense of freedom. Eventually, I did away with my phone altogether while waiting for school to get out. Instead, I kept a book in my glove box and read a chapter or two each day while waiting.
It was glorious. There’s nothing more earthy and organic than holding a paperback book. It’s soft and made from trees. Sometimes, I would even stop reading and raise the page to my nose while taking a deep whiff. It smelled like knowledge. I suddenly resented my phone and the time I’d wasted in the pick-up zone watching mindless content. Out of curiosity, I picked up my phone and took a whiff. Unsurprisingly, it smelled like anxiety.
After a week or two of reading my book, I began feeling sorry for the other parents in the pick-up area. I suddenly viewed them in a new light. Some looked frazzled, while others looked downright depressed. I assumed each person was searching for something fun or exciting while scrolling on social media. But from the looks on their faces, it appeared they hadn’t yet found what they were looking for.
Eventually, I decided I was overthinking the whole thing. It occurred to me that it was none of my business how others spent 2.5 hours per week waiting in the pick-up zone. Why should I carry the burden of worrying about the mental health of strangers? Their screen time is none of my business. In the end, what does it matter how a person passes the time? Read a book. Look at a phone. Take a nap. Have a cigarette and pace back and forth near the school entrance.
This literally happened a while back. An impatient dad just whipped out a Marlboro and lit that sucker without a care in the world. I’m certain there is a policy of no smoking on school grounds. When he lit the cigarette, I tossed my book into the glove box and pressed my face up against my window for a better look. At this point, I noticed a few other parents looking up from their phones. Like me, they must have been wondering what would happen next. Would security tackle this guy? Would the gym teacher come out and ask to bum a smoke? Would the principal call the cops?
Not knowing was half the fun. Suddenly, all eyes were on the smoking dad. Who needs social media or paperback books to pass the time when real-life drama unfolds? The man appeared to be friendly enough, but clearly, he had no idea it was against the law to smoke on school grounds. While smoking, he was talking on the phone and it sounded like he was speaking Thai. If he was born there, I suppose we should cut him a break. Perhaps in Thailand, they’ve got bigger problems to worry about than smoking on school grounds. After all, who cares about lung cancer when you’re dealing with monkeys stealing your wallet?
The whole situation turned out to be anticlimactic. After a few puffs of his cigarette, he discretely dropped it and stomped out the ember. I reached for my book and continued reading. Compared to the thought of a smoking dad getting tackled by security, my book now seemed a little dull. I tossed it in the glove box and reached for my phone. In no time, I was watching a goat jumping on a trampoline with a mini potbelly pig. Part of me felt guilty for being lured into the digital rabbit hole of mindless videos when a book would be better for my brain. Then I shrugged and thought, “Eh, books can be addicting. Everything in moderation.”