Note: I wrote this back in September 2012 and only saw this recently in my inbox, still unpublished. Well, here it is, seeing the light of day. :)
It's 9 p.m. as I write this, my bedtime in fact, but I have yet to log off on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, my personal and work email addresses, and close the tabs on my browser.
Let's see. I've been off work since 4 p.m., but I was busy working on something, and subsequently clocked out at 5:20 p.m.
When I got home before 6 p.m., I checked our website and my emails just to see if there's nothing urgent in case of the latter, and nothing erroneous in the articles I edited and posted online during the day.
From there, it was a quick hop to Facebook and Twitter, and when I saw someone post a story pitch in our group on FB, I went back to check our website to see if we had covered it already. Indeed we had.
But what are the new stories posted on our site? I click the archives, read the headlines, read stories.
Soon I remembered something and wrote an email about work.
So now it's 9:20 p.m. and I am still up.
"But how do you go offline?" my friend asked me last summer after I answered his question about my work.
I stopped in my tracks. How indeed do I go offline?
The truth is, I hardly go offline.
Going online is just a way of life. In the morning, I check the news sites and social media to know what's happening. When I need to contact a friend, I check first if she's online, and if not, that's when I text her. At work, instead of hollering to someone across the room, I use the chat function on Gmail. Looking for a recipe? I turn to a food site. Need directions to get to a place? There's Google Maps. And if I feel like trying out something new for lunch, I look up food blogs.
The downside to this, though, is that going offline can be jarring, especially when it's involuntary.
Three weeks ago, when the habagat flood inundated Metro Manila, our Internet service at home got cut. And many other subscribers also experienced it, as reported by the recorded message played on the hotline of my ISP.
It took two weeks before service was fully restored, but our router is still not working, so that makes it 3 weeks now.
I had no choice but have no access to the Internet outside the office, unless I go to a Wi-Fi place or an Internet cafe.
At first it was unsettling, but later on I learned to enjoy my off-duty hours reading a book (print version), lying down, resting, and even cooking.
And I realized going offline can be relaxing.
When do you go offline? I heard one IT exec saying he turns off his Blackberry after work so he can enjoy time with his family, and he did realize that work can wait til the next day.
Sometimes we have made going online our default mode that we forget the joys of an offline life. Let's not miss out on those.
And I realized going offline can be relaxing.
BOOK OF THE WEEK: I'm still reading Anthony Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour” which I started before the ECQ. For 30 minutes, over lunch, I feel like I’m in Vietnam eating pho, in Spain having tapas, and in Portugal eyeing the cozido even if I’m just having Korean ramen or homemade egg sandwich in Manila.
VERSE OF THE WEEK: Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom (NLT). Psalm 90:12
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