Fresh Start

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Digitizing Self

My sister could navigate an iphone before she could even run. She loved to swipe left through my photo album to look for pictures of herself and when she’d find one she’d giggle before swiping left again. She could do this for 20 minutes without taking a break.

I babysat three little girls for a while, and when their parents got home from work and the kids wouldn’t stop asking questions and interrupting the payment process, they’d hand them their iphones with music from some game blaring loudly. The girls would take the phone and sit on the couch quietly while I received my payment. The TV volume way up, Dora the Explorer’s voice filled the room. As I’d leave, the parents would go into the kitchen to make dinner, leaving the girls sitting there with the phone and TV.

I was friends with a computer science major from Virginia Tech. One time while we were on the way to dinner as he explained one of his projects at school I asked him, “Is that really necessary? People can do that themselves. How far is too far when it comes to technology?”  He just shrugged and changed the subject. We only ever texted since he was away at school. Our friendship eventually broke down. We aren’t the only ones.

Computers in Human Behavior published a study done between divorce and social media usage. In every model studied, both survey and data, there was a clear link. For every 20% increase in Facebook usage there was also a 2.18 to 4.32% increase in divorce rates.

Technology, it appears, can be an easy replacement for human contact. But don’t we lose something distinctly human in the process?

We are quickly becoming isolated. Two years ago CNN published an article stating that the decline of consumers buying cars can be connected to new drivers who no longer feel the need to purchase vehicles. In fact, the purchasing of cars by drivers aged 18-34 dropped 30% from 2007 to 2012. The article states, “...mostly it's the explosion of social media. Car ownership just may not be as socially important as it used to be.” Why drive to see your friend, when you can Facetime them at the same time that you look at their past week on Facebook. They can share their life with you that way. But is this really a healthy way to maintain “relationships”?

Questioning the way technology is changing us as humans isn’t a new concept. In fact, it has been a constant question since the beginning of the industrial revolution with the Luddites. Rebekah Higgitt makes this point in a 2013 Guardian article. Higgitt brings up several instances of mistrust of technology over the past centuries. One in particular features quotes from 1892 with the printing press replacing handwritten letters stating, “We live at too fast a rate.” Higgitt goes on to state, “Cities, print, the novel (especially the serialised novel), steam ships, trains, telephones, magazines and more have all been held to be worrisome and probably dangerous to the well-being and tranquility of the young and impressionable. Lock up your women and servants!” Indeed, mistrust of technology has always existed.

Technology isn’t intrinsically a terrible thing. My best friend from high school moved to Perth,  Australia a year after graduation. She only comes home once every two years.  A few Facetimes in between visits are what we have to sustain our friendship, and we have. But only because technology allows us to.

My cousins live in Alaska, and on holidays we all Skype to catch up. None of us can afford a flight to visit, but we do have Skype to sustain us.

I find that most days I “talk” to a large number of people, but yet feel as though I’ve spent my entire day alone. How can I feel so alone when I’m answering Facebook messages, text messages, and emails (on four accounts), constantly? I still feel as though I’m on my own in the world.

I’m most likely not the only one feeling this way. A 2013 Newsweek article by Tony Dokoupil offered up a startling statistic; “every year since 1999, more Americans have killed themselves than the year before, making suicide the nation’s greatest untamed cause of death.” In fact, it offers that there has been an almost 20% climb in annual suicides. A number that another specialist thinks the actual number could actually be 30% higher.

The steep climb in suicides and depression could be linked to our loss of human contact, couldn’t it?

Many believe it does, John Cacioppo from University of Chicago told Newsweek; “The greater the proportion of online interactions, the lonelier you are.” To which the article made a further connection, “The opposite is also true: more face time, less loneliness.”  

If we all feel lonely as we cling to our computers and smartphones, something clearly is not working. We’re supposed to be more connected today than ever before.

Then why do I, and so many others, feel so alone?

In 2001, educator Marc Prensky coined the term “digital native”. These are the children of today who were born into this technologically advanced world. Children like my sister, swiping left on an iphone before they could even speak a clear sentence. They know nothing else.

So where does that leave those digital natives when it comes to the negative aspects of our advancing technology. Will they be even more alone than those of us who experienced life before constant connectivity . . . through a screen?

This isn’t entirely true of myself, either. I feel as though I’m at the cross section between Prensky’s “natives” and “immigrants”. I know both worlds. I wasn’t very old before AIM was popular and was an innovative way to connect. I was still familiar with getting on my bike to go find my friend Austen to play tag in the neighborhood. I couldn’t text him to talk, I had to go to him.

But I also grew up in school surrounded by Apple Macbooks and iPods. Our teachers taught us on SmartBoards, drawing digitally on a powerpoint projection, tapping to change pages. Our school had a contract with Apple that supplied each student with a laptop, and the school received new computers every time Apple produced one. We had innovative new learning that incorporated so much technology that I rarely had to turn in a hard copy of a paper or carry textbooks. I graduated in 2011, Prensky noticed the change in students in 2001.

Education has had to adjust to this change. Prensky saw the change coming, I experienced the change, and my sister’s education is completely different than anything I had growing up.

I’ve taken several classes online during my years at Penn State. There’s something very different about never hearing or seeing your professor. While I can still learn much from the class, group projects through email or message boards seem somehow . . . cold. I don’t know these people on the other side of the screen, and I never will. There’s no reason for us to ever connect in person. We can just email. Yet,  somehow I feel like I know their personalities simply based off of their communication styles through chat and email. Most likely because I have encountered people like them before in reality. But will that change as we connect with people face to face less often?

I told my mom one time that while I enjoyed Facetime, I felt like Apple was trying to solve a problem that didn’t really need to exist in the first place. You have to create a way to speak to people face to face? The name says it all, Facetime. But prior to their iPhones consuming our human relationships, people got plenty of face time. They created a problem they then had to fix. But the fix just isn’t the same. You are still looking at them through the screen, it takes away any physical connection, and makes it harder to distinguish emotion.

I’m not saying that technology is a bad thing. I believe it is a fantastic thing for our world. The way we are now connected globally is great. But I do think it is contributing to the erosion of what makes us distinctly human.

As we become less familiar with what it means to be human, we may also become more cold. I would not be shocked if we see more murder, more depression, more cyber bullying as we lose our understanding of being human, we connect with people less.

There is a balance. A balance between using technology to benefit us, and using technology to turn us all into robots with a lack of understanding emotions and one another. I’m not sure what this balance is, but I am hopeful that humans will start to desire humanity. Maybe, because all this technology is so new, we are diving in too deep.

I hope my sister, and the little girls I babysat, learn that there is more to life than our smartphones. That their parents will start to pay attention to them more often, not use technology as a crutch. Perhaps, we’ll start to crave one another’s company enough that the pendulum will swing back to a balance.

I for one hope we do. I miss being human.

Perfect Collision

"The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." 

- Fredrick Buechner

It may seem cliche, but if you had asked me just a little over a year ago where I would be right now, I never would have been able to tell you I'd be at this place in my life. But God always has a plan much bigger than we could ever dream or imagine. Perhaps that is why this quote wrapped me in such warmth.

This is my reality. As soon as I read the quote I knew. More than just the fact that this is where God has placed me (stretching far beyond any of my own ability). He placed me here because this is where I will find my own deep gladness, but also will help to heal some of the world's deepest pains.

That's all I desire in life. To find my own true happiness in doing what I was meant to do, and in doing so help heal just a bit of someone else's pain. I hope that no matter what opportunity, or struggles come my way I remain strong.

It also is a warning. If you ever find that you no longer have a deep gladness or joy in where you are at, perhaps you are no longer where God wants you. The two are not exclusive. You will be happy, if you are where God wants you to be. That is the great collision. My great collision.

May it always be so.

-Girl Unscripted

Becoming Me

I use to believe myself some kind of deplorable "good girl" who never could truly reach the status of "good". I found myself consistently tethered to self made responsibility and expectations that felt impossible to escape. I wanted to meet so many preconceived ideas of what I believed to be what a well behaved girl should look like. But I've discovered that in my quest to finding how to be the good girl, I never really found myself. I was constantly putting on masks to try to fit the world preconceived ideas of what I was. Truthfully, I was good at it.  I could force myself to fit into the cookie cutter that society wanted me to fit into, but was never truly sure of who I really was. I spent so many growing up years unhappy with my life because I never could reach that lofty expectation I set before myself.

It was only recently that I found myself looking back and realizing that somewhere along the way I found me. There is not a definitive moment I can look at and say, "There...that's when it happened." At some point, I just let go.  I stopped fighting to fit some sort of mold and accepted who I truly am, and I am happy.

Maybe it was recent events that caused me to be self aware, but I find myself sincerely in awe of that fact that I finally know who I am.  Make no mistake, I in no way believe that I did this myself.  Gentle prodding from God has gently edged me to the precipice of my preconceived ideas until one day unknowingly I just jumped. I have known that God was a parachute I could cling to when I needed him most, but I always thought I would grab hold in my greatest moments of pain. Surprisingly, instead I clung to him in quiet moments without even knowing I was doing so.  But that's what faith is supposed to be, an unaware consistent devotion and trust.  A quiet faith.  If you are striving, then you are trying too hard.

So who did I discover I am? I am the things I once dreamed of being but thought I could never achieve. 

I am confident. I always wanted to be confident but no matter how hard I tried I was never confident in who I was.  Until God. 

I am content. No matter how many times I tried to find the answer to contentment, whatever I was chasing let me down. Until God.

I am focused. Being focused on some goal or dream seemed like a never ending shuffling of mindsets because I couldn't find that one thing to focus on. Until God.

I accept me. Instead of always fighting against the casings of my immature expectations of adulthood I am happy being where I am in life. I accept that God has gently nudged me to a place in my life I never would have dreamed of.

I am hopeful. Instead of living with regrets and what ifs, I look to the future with an overwhelming sense of joy. I know that no matter where God nudges me next, it can only be where I will be happiest.

So what would I like you to know as a result of all of this? Stop trying. Don't try to fit a mold you are creating, don't try to fit some expectation.  Just be, because in just letting go you will truly find who you are. Reader, I hope that like me, one day you will wake up and realize you finally know who you are and be happy. I know it's a cliche statement but, let go and let God. That is the secret to finding you.

Goldilocks

Not that Goldilocks. As in the three bear one.  I'm talking the Goldilocks zone, have you heard of that one?  Well here's my quick summary. The Goldilocks zone is an astronomy term for the space around a star that is just the right temperature for any of the planets which fall in that zone to be classified as habitable.  AKA...it's "just right".  Well, I feel like I'm in my Goldilocks zone.  I'm not referring to being the right temperature (although this spring weather is almost my definition of perfect) but I am talking about my life.  I'm in the perfect place and find myself happy as a fish in water (is that a saying?  I feel like I got that wrong...) Anyways, I feel like I can see my whole life spread out before me.  It is within reach, and it is my Goldilocks zone.  I feel....at home, and content.  I can't tell you another time I have felt this content.  Honestly, nothing can get me down (even destroying the side of my car).  I feel like I am just where I need to be, and where I will be happy to always be.  My Goldilocks zone.

A Short Story to Share...

Rain, tinkling against the window woke her from her sleep drenched mind.  Her room dark with the foreboding of the stronger force to come.  She curled into a tight ball, hugging her knees to her chest with a shuddering sigh.  Her hair lies matted against her cheek slicked with damp salty tears.  She tries to embrace the calm silence before again joining the land of the living, or barely living depending how you saw it.  She wanted much for her life, but somehow always felt as though falling short.  Once, she had considered herself a warrior of the game some call living.  Surviving more then some people can claim on their dying day.  But somehow, this failure seemed too startling and blatant.  Surely everyone knew by now.

It seemed as though it should be so easy, just choosing to slip away and not wake up.  But it wasn't. She stretched her legs out, moving her ankles a bit to revive them.  She hasn't slipped away in unconsciousness so for her to give up in wakefulness seemed too cowardly.  Life called whether she wanted it to or not.  She started to rise on her elbows.  But a strange scent stopped her like a rabbit caught in the garden.  That scent, so familiar.  It was heady with a sense of exotic.  But yet it somehow smelled homey.  It smelled like a hug with a whispered encouragement.  It took her off guard, breathing deep she whispered, "Who's there?" No voice echoed back but her own.  She pulled the blankets close to her face trying to block the scent.  It disarmed her and she didn't like feeling out of control.  But the scent filled her blankets and memory too clearly.  She couldn't escape.  She couldn't move.

She knew the scent from some time previous, but somehow couldn't place its time or place.  Somewhere deep inside she knew it was nothing to fear.  But she also knew that in this moment she did.  She began to weep, cry "what do you need from me?" Why now in her utter failure did it wash over her?  This wasn't the time for a visit from Him.  Not when she had lost all she had hoped to be.  But that scent, tangling in her hair and brushing her skin with an otherworldly glow of joy, it seemed to disable her mind.  She felt whole and...happy.  Her tears gone, she lifted her eyes to the fan spinning above her.  She began to sing, a song she had not known just an hour ago.  A song of joy and hope.  This was her place she found refuge.  She found peace.  Her own personal sanctuary.

She no longer belonged in this world but she had to press on.  She felt strong, but it wasn't her strength to waste on something other then what it was meant for.  She was marked, the scent flowing from her hair.  She was different.  She didn't belong here, she belonged there.  She belonged where no one could go and return. She belonged away from what had plagued her only moments before.  She, was not of this world.  She smiled, knowing she had not failed.  He had visited her, here in her sanctuary.

Hit the Ground Running

I apologize that it has been awhile since I've written.  Life has a way of catching up and overwhelming you.  I feel like I've been swallowed by a monsoon wave!  School has been going so well, but I must admit I have put much less attention and ambition into then I normally would have.  Sometimes, the idea of the future can pull you down because of fear and insecurity.  A lot of times, I doubt my ability to succeed, but yet I know that if I really set my mind to it, I could do anything.  But I'm afraid of failing, and sometimes it seems like it would be safer to not even try. 
But I know that's not the answer.  Deep down, I know my dreams aren't so big and impossible they are out of my reach.  I know what I want, I just am not sure how to go get it.  I wonder over and over if making one bad decision like picking the wrong school will mess up my entire future.  But I know, I know...God knows the future and has it all under control.  But I must admit that often times I doubt his control too.  I've seen my world spiral out of control before and sometimes I wonder why God didn't have his hand on that.  But...HE DID.  I know it in my head, my heart can be a little slow.
So I've made a commitment lately to going after what it is I feel I am supposed to in order to become who I think God has made me to be.  I want to make a difference, and sometimes the only way to make a difference is to put yourself in uncomfortable circumstances so that in the end you can be a blessing and make a difference in the world.  So I am running full speed into the future and I just keep praying that when God wants to stop me, he slams the door so hard there is no doubt.  That is the only way I'll know for sure that God has another plan for me, head hitting a door. 
I also must admit that sometimes I'm afraid, what if God has other plans for me then what I desire?  I know that I am good at what I am working towards, it seems to be a gift of mine.  But what if even though it's my gift, I'll never actually be able to use it?  That scares me.  I want to use it, I want to be someone who knows who they are and is confident in their abilities.  But it is so hard sometimes.  So for now, I'm running, and praying, and hoping that sometime soon I'll know what it is I'm supposed to do and how I'm supposed to do it.  Because right now I feel like I'm floundering and stumbling my way through trying to figure life out. 

Endless In Betweens....

You're looping. You somehow find yourself in this endless loop cycle and can't seem to break out of it.  A rut that your wheels just keep spinning in.  When there is something you want so much it hurts to think you won't have it.  So then somehow you find yourself just sitting there thinking and rethinking and over thinking  unsure what your next step should be.  You over analyze and reanalyze and still you don't know what steps to take.  You can speak your mind, but that doesn't mean anything will change.  You could bottle it all up, but then you'll eventually implode from all the pressure building up.

It wasn't something you asked for, but all the same here you are and you can't move on.  So you just keep looping, and find yourself stuck in this empty awkward in between that is completely endless.  You don't see anyway out of it.
Maybe you aren't supposed to be able to get out?  Like a grave you dug yourself you're completely submerged.  Don't get me wrong, it feels good, being sunk this deep.  But it can be lonely, when you're there all alone.  It's one of those things where you can't drag anyone else in unless they are willing to be. But sometimes they put this wall there and you can't pull them over it.
Maybe the only One who can pull you out or others in isn't talking.  So your in this silence and you could scream and maybe He won't even hear.  So you sit in the bottom of this grave, happy....but so so lonely.  You know the words that have been said, and you skew them and replay them and try to understand, but get no where.  So there you sit in this looping cycle with no real directions and have you no idea what to do....

We're all guilty of it

It's the same for me every year. I hem and haw and putz along. I get the gifts at the last minute. I stress out over all that I have to do. And I complain. I say it doesn't feel like Christmas. I think to myself, why does the week leading to Christmas never look like the movie ones? I fight with my sisters or throw mini adult temper tantrums. Why? Because I'm not really focused on what it means. It doesn't mean having the perfect gift for each person, or having everything wrapped pinterest-ly perfect. It doesn't mean spending every spare moment with those who matter most. What matters is embracing the miracle. The miracle of a virgin birth, of a savior. The miracle of unity and coming together. We overlook all this in our desire to DO everything we think everyone expects.

AND THEN, it's here. The family gathers around the tree, or table, or fire. The lights wink like a constellation from under the crystal white snow. The hot chocolate mix is heated up and your cant get enough of the chocolate goodness. It's then we know, and we finally stop trying to DO and just BE. But why wait till then? Why not stop doing and pushing ourselves and just embrace each broken bulb or pine needle mess. Because the things that stress us out are part of what makes the holidays the holidays! So next year when your cookie mix is lacking flour, or a whole strand of lights on the top of your house go out, LAUGH. Take a deep breath. Just BE still and enjoy all these things that let you know it's that time of year again.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS READER!