10.19.2015 - 80 of 365
1 mile run - Lake Serene
42 degrees 72% humidity
Disconnected Trip 2015
A few months back my friend Eric Bailey had me sit down and watch a documentary called Voyage. It was a documentary about a group of wake boarders, wake surfers, national recording artists and film makers that would set on a voyage from Tennessee to the Gulf of Mexico in three weeks. The kicker to the story was that they were going to give up their cell phones for the entire trip and disconnect from society. Being wake boarders, wake surfers, musicians and people that are connected daily to our phones, we instantly fell in love with this idea and decided to set a date to do the same type of excursion with a few of our close friends. After a number of schedule conflicts and date proposals we finally set the trip for October 15 thru the 19th. Unfortunately not all of the guys that wanted to come could disconnect for the weekend and make it, so it ended up being just four of us.
Eric and Ben arrived early Thursday afternoon and got in some killer wake board and wake surf sets. I joined them that night as soon as I was able to leave work. We made some last minute phone calls and texts to our wives and girlfriends and shut down or “disconnected” from the outside world. The next day Eric, Ben and I went out to the lake and got some amazing sets in early in the morning. Our friend Ricky showed up after lunch, turned off his phone and went out on the lake with us for another session. Ricky could only stay part of the day, but it was nice to have him out there with us as well. Bryan arrived around five o’ clock that evening after he got off of work. It was starting to get chilly and really windy, so we decided not to do anymore riding for the day. Instead we pounded back a few beers, watched an amazing sunset, made some food on the grill, built a fire and jammed on my guitar for the remainder of the evening. The next day it was too cold and windy to do too much. Instead we laid around the cabin and watched a lot of football with all of the doors open. It was nice to actually watch a full game without seeing what everyone was saying about the game on Facebook. Later that day Ben wanted to go out on the water. With it being too cold and windy to wake board he decided to try the air chair. This provided all of us a lot of comic relief.
I can honestly say that getting rid of my phone for a few days was a pretty nervous, but also an exciting moment for me. I admit that I am way too connected to my cell phone. Unfortunately we live in a society where we depend on these things for every day survival. We are so worried about our jobs, emails, finances, games, videos, music, taking pictures, blogging, twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the list goes on; to put down the phones for a few minutes and have real “face time” with our families and friends. I do not know how to fix this, and know that there really is no answer, but after this weekend I am going to try my best to fix it even if it is just a little bit in my own personal life. It was absolutely amazing to not be attached to my phone for four solid days. I listened to the sounds of the outside world while I was on my morning runs. I listened to my friend’s stories and actually paid attention to what they were really saying. We talked about everything, really listening to what the other person had to say. I remembered how peaceful it is to sit outside with my guitar and watch the sunset. I reconnected to myself, and reset my way of thinking. It is funny that we called this trip our disconnect trip when it was just opposite of that. We are so disconnected to each other in our daily lives that because of this technology. We are so disconnected that we have to take a trip to reconnect ourselves to what life is really all about. I am personally going to take what I learned this past weekend and reconnect to my family and friends.
