3 Lessons From A Rebooted Phone

I knew it would happen to me eventually, and it did, my phone had a spasm and all my data had to be deleted and restored to factory settings. There's a certain fear about this, that some of our data isn't protected and will be gone forever. All those years of great photos of friends, videos of blowing out birthday candles, flirty texts from that special someone, all gone, poof, just like that, and you can never have it back. In one sense, this is silly. We have memories, and we revisit those times in our memories, and it isn't like phones are extensions of our minds. But if we had a limited amount of photos of our loved ones, we would feel a bit of loss if those photos were to be destroyed. There's something to these memory aids. Anyways, here are some lessons I've learned going through a reboot of my phone.

1) Repent For Tomorrow Is Not Promised

Some years ago, after some time being friends with this young woman, call her Jewel, we decided to give dating a try. I was excited, she was nervous, but it was all thrilling. Then, her father passed into glory, and Jewel asked me for some time to mourn, and that we would pick up where we left off. I agreed, and gave her the space she asked for. But I grew impatient. I didn't want to contact her and seem pushy, so I moved on. I found someone else, and I entered a relationship with another woman. Not long after my new found relationship, Jewel called me and said she was done mourning and that she was ready to give dating a try. "Sorry Jewel," I told her with guilt in my voice, "but I thought you had moved on. I did." She became upset and in her anger called me names and burned the bridge. I told Jewel I would wait, and in retrospect it wasn't even that long, and I did not keep my word. I was wrong to do that, and it has bothered me since. I lost a friend. I betrayed a friend. I lost a jewel.

I had kept Jewel's number in my phone. Why? To apologize, for sure, but no time ever seemed like the right time. I was too busy with school or work or church or friends or...whatever. The more time that had passed, the worse time it seemed to be. "But I will do it," I kept telling myself, "eventually." But eventually has now passed. I don't have a way to contact Jewel. What is broken will now stay broken, and the stain of my sin has set into my moral fabric. I think, 'If I just had one more day to say I was sorry and that I was wrong, I would take it!' So, now I imagine exaggerated lengths I would take to see her and right my wrongs. I know she goes to a Catholic university up north, and I sometimes wonder if I sit in the school parish long enough and pray, I would see her walk in, but that's silly. Or maybe it isn't. Perhaps we will eventually meet in front of the Blessed and then I could show her my repentance. But that will come at the cost of death, a price too high to pay now. Repent now before you can no longer. I wish I did.

2) Do Not Hold Onto Failures

It's true what they say, about life flashing before your eyes when you're a moment away from death. When I got into my car accident, I thought of my entire life and made peace with it and was confident, even if somewhat unprepared, to see God's face in just a few seconds. My life was graciously spared, but I was definitely in constant fear in vehicles for a while afterwards. I would bark at friends giving me rides to watch the road, slow down, make complete stops, look both ways, etc. I would dream about the incident, and look at pictures of the scene to remind myself how lucky I was to walk away from that with just a few scars and how unlucky I would be if I were just 6 inches closer to the incoming vehicle.

I held onto these photos, and a whiff of failure would invade me when I would scroll past them in my phone gallery. When you smell something rotten, you throw it out right? Well I didn't, and knowing I had these photos on my phone felt like it added 20 lbs to my phone. So, with the reboot of my phone, and the deletion of my car accident pictures, my phone is light as a feather. Do I feel tempted to redownload them onto my phone? Nope! I don't know why I did in the first place. Why did I put myself through that emotional baggage? Whatever the reason, I am a much freer and happier person for having gotten rid of it. Lighter yokes are better yokes, so do not hold on to your failures.

3) An Authentic Life Wishes Death To The World

It has become something of a cliche to say that social media is making us less social, smartphones are making us dumber and all that jazz. I think it just helps one express the passions each of us have innately, but now we can express those passions in unprecedented ways. With all my apps gone, I had to make conscious decisions about which apps I wanted to redownload. Instagram? Why, so I can show off to all my friends about the places I go to pretend I am more interesting than I let on? Coffee Meets Bagel? Why did I keep that when I am discerning priesthood anyways? Etrade? Dude, you just put that there so you can tell your friends you are financially literate and have a pulse on world markets when you don't have the first clue about dividends, bonds, stocks, etc. Don't be a poser and leave that out. I have reinstalled Facebook, Laudate, and a few others, but I have fewer apps as I did before, and I feel less egotistical about it all. Reevaluating whether it was good idea to have these apps or not required a good look in the mirror and fighting of the ego, a fighting of the attention seeking worldliness. Death to the world. Death to my phone. Here's to a new life with it.

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