A couple of weeks back, I was away in Myanmar conducting several workshops when my phone died…completely.
Over the past year or so, I had prided myself for being able to do more on my mobile phone. I had even transferred some of the apps I would normally do on an iPad, especially for my training related work, onto my iPhone. That left me with a lighter load, especially when travelling. I would read newspapers on my pbone, carry out my bank transactions, and of course, all the social media stuff. So when my phone suddenly went blank overseas, I was at a loss!
I suddenly lost contact with the world…well, almost. It was a good thing that my colleague was around to make calls, e.g. to call for a taxi, and to correspond with “the rest of the world” on my behalf. I had to whipped out my trusty old mobile, an iPhone 5C, from generations ago. However, with only 8gb of memory, much of my trusted apps couldn’t even perform properly.
As I was overseas, there was very little I could do. I definitely couldn’t find a genius bar around in Nay Pyi Taw. For almost a week, I was contactable only through mobile calls and SMS as my mobile roaming didn’t quite work. That’s when I decided that I should just “chill” and not worry about it. If there was any life and death situation, I was pretty sure anyone could still reach me.
Life became a bit simpler for me those few days. I concentrated better during the workshops (which turned out great) as I no longer had a phone buzzing with all the notifications. I wasn’t responsible for taking any photos since I had no camera with me (my colleague had to do all the work, and he did a great job!). When I watched movies at night in the hotel, I could concentrate a 100% without any distractions. It was kinda nostalgic as they were showing old movies and I couldn’t get to my Netflix and Prime videos.
I must admit that it wasn’t easy going through the week of mobile phone “detox” programme. Every now and then, I tried to reboot my phone, praying (and belief me, I tried praying to all the saints for technology) somehow that it would suddenly come alive…but it stayed dead. I was glad however, that I didn’t end up in a panic and ruin by trip. I stayed pretty chill – and I think that was my biggest learning lesson. Yes, it definitely caused a whole lot of inconvenience but it wasn’t and shouldn’t be a reason to get all upset. Look on the positive side. There is always a positive side to everything (Side note: I now got a 2 year warranty on the replacement iPhone!).
Maybe you should spend a week without your phone too!