May 20, 2020
The Choice
Smartphones have become normalized into our lives so deeply that it’s easy to forget what life before them was even like. We did not always have mini-computers in our pockets. Nowadays, however, the idea of not having that app that we ABSOLUTELY NEED seems impossible to actually imagine.
Like how we have the choice of different shoes to pick as we get ready to leave for the day, we wanted to create another choice for how we chose to be “connected” for the day…the Light Phone.
How will I chose to experience my life today?
Making the choice to ‘go light’ is difficult honestly. There are an infinite number of excuses that can be made for why you might need your smartphone on any given day. Directions, music, photos … what if an important email comes through?
This whole laundry list of things go through my head. All of these excuses suddenly come for why I still need to bring an actual smartphone. It’s just really interesting to notice how much the mind wants to stay in that safe place and I wonder actually if the reason it’s so liberating sometimes to use the light phone is because you make that choice. You actually make the choice. You say, ‘screw it, I’m not going to just be a victim of all of these excuses of my mind. I’m going to take charge. I’m going to decide what kind of life I want to live.’
When you make that choice to ‘go light’ (and live to tell the tale) you realize all those excuses were…well… just excuses. Life went on and you were able to take a much needed break from the hyper-connectivity that defines so much of our lives today.
One day I realized while playing with my 8 year-old that my attention was wandering and I badly wanted to check my email. I asked myself, “What could be so pressing in your email that you’d leave one of the few precious moments you have with her to check?” The answer was: nothing.
- Arjune Rama
You are empowered because you were able to overcome your excuses. You were your best self. Once you are able to understand the value of being light, you might begin to see them as simply minor inconveniences for the satisfaction of being more present in your own life.
There’s strong anxiety the first few times you use the Light Phone in how limited it is, but you also quickly realize how many bad impulses have become a matter of habit, like trying to check out the latest photos or posts at the slightest hint of boredom no matter where you are. Once you get past that, you start to appreciate that the device is letting you appreciate what’s around you (or in your head) rather than trying to grab your attention and keep it attached to things that are often ultimately temporal and largely without value.
-Niraj Sanghvi
For other “missing features” you may also find that alternative solutions can be ultimately more satisfying. Lack of a smartphone camera for instance. Perhaps try using a real camera; an object actually designed for taking photos. With a camera around your neck, your elevating photography even more than when it just lives in your phone in your pocket. Your experience will be different, you will be experiencing your day through a different lens, looking at the world more closely. You might also find that the photographs are more meaningful, photographs you will cherish for life, or that you build a sentimental relationship to the camera itself. All of which, in the end, gives you a deeper satisfaction than a smartphone camera.
You don’t have to choose to go light, of course, but please don’t forget that the choice is yours. This life is yours. Every mundane second is your mundane second. Fill it how you chose. You could scroll through Instagram ads or sit bored daydreaming. You can literally do anything. In an existential way, that responsibility is quite overwhelming at times, which is partially why it’s so easy to just sit back and watch the infinite feeds. But just because it’s easy, does that mean it’s how you really want to spend your time?
