Today I sat in my backyard and listened to a baseball game on the radio. I was burning some brush from spring clean-up in my fire pit. The baseball game wasn’t actually on the radio. It was on an app on my phone.
I like listening to baseball games on the radio. I mostly listen to the Red Sox because I am a Red Sox fan and I am interested in how they are doing. I am also a baseball fan so I will listen to a different game if the Red Sox are not on. Sometimes listening to a baseball game adds to whatever activity I am doing. Even if I am just sitting in the backyard burning some brush from spring clean-up.
There are times when I am sitting in the backyard doing not much of anything and I wonder if I am wasting time. Are we supposed to making the most of our time? Does sitting next to a fire in the backyard listening to a baseball game count as making the most of our time? There are still a bunch of sticks in the yard that were knocked off trees over the winter. Maybe I should have been picking those up and making the most of my time doing that.
I think that sitting and listening to a baseball game next to a fire while burning spring clean-up brush is not a waste of time. It gives me a chance to relax and think. It gives me a chance to look around at the spring coming into the backyard. It gives me a chance to slow down and think about what I am going to do next. Sometimes I just sit and watch the wood burn and don’t think about much of anything.
It is important to me to disconnect. I spend plenty of time being connected and being distracted by things. Electronics are made to distract us. Big Tech would rather have us looking at our devices so they can sell to us. They don’t want us staring at a fire and not thinking about anything.
I am as guilty as anyone of being distracted by my device. I can look at just one more post or just one more email. Maybe if I refresh I will have another like. There are times when I feel disappointed about myself because I didn’t see enough likes to my latest post. There are other times when I am disappointed in myself because I just spent an hour scrolling for something and didn’t find it. That is an hour I will never get back.
I wasn’t disappointed in myself today when I got up from my chair next to the fire. I listened to the baseball game for about 45 minutes and didn’t do anything other than put more wood on the fire. And the only thing I was distracted by was the group of blue jays that were playing in the cherry tree in the corner of the yard.
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