[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s Friday morning, and you wake up with a smile, knowing you have a weekend to look forward to after class. You get up and dressed, have a decent breakfast, and leave your house at a reasonable hour. On the way to school, you greet your neighbours and friends, and even have time to stop for a quick chat. In class, you learn something that interests or puzzles you, not something that’s solely required for graduation purposes. After class you’ll have time to do something fun, totally unrelated to work or school. You’ll have a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day because you connected with everyone around you; never once did you worry about the paper due next week, because it’s already done, or updating the world on what you did that day, because you were with them.
Now picture this instead: it’s Friday morning, and you wake up still half-asleep, having only gotten four hours of sleep thanks to the paper due in one hour. Wait, one hour? You’re going to be late for class again! You scramble to find the nearest outfit that’s clean, and rush out the door with a piece of toast in your hand, your backpack slung over one shoulder. You make it to school, dropping your paper off at the office before rushing to class. Sliding into your seat, you celebrate your victory before remembering the intense workload you’ve got lined up for the weekend. . . but then you remember that it’s also your best friend’s birthday, and he’s throwing a huge party that you really just can’t miss. But how are you expected to finish all your assignments when you’re sleep deprived, or worse, hungover? Perhaps you shouldn’t have watched those two extra episodes on Netflix.
Which scenario would you rather be in? We all stride to live that first one, but very few of us actually make it happen.
Living in Canada, one of the most developed countries in the world, seems to have just as many downfalls as it does benefits. One of the main downfalls of living in a developed country comes in the form of distractions. With technology being central to business in this day and age, we’re constantly surrounded by marketing and advertisements on one side, Snapchat and Instagram on the other, and yet more social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter right in front of us. If it’s getting to be to much, it’s almost impossible to walk away.
They refuse to turn into a first world country if it means they have to pollute their land with the superficiality of social media.
Even with technology, there are still countries that operate alongside the first scenario. Last year I travelled to Bhutan, a tiny country underneath China. It’s considered as a third world country, but is also known to many as the happiest place on Earth. At first I thought, how is that possible? Aren’t third world countries supposed to be deprived of everything we hold dear, and full of manual labour?
It turns out that my assumptions were correct, but not to the extent that I thought. I realized that the Bhutanese actually enjoy living without the latest technology; in fact, they refuse to turn into a first world country if it means they have to pollute their land with the superficiality of social media.
During my time there, I was cut off from any form of internet or social media, so my phone stayed buried at the bottom of my backpack. The first couple of days was torture, I’ll admit; I was itching to check my notifications to see what the rest of the world was up to. After those initial days, though, I came around to the fact that no matter how much I wished it, an internet connection wouldn’t magically establish, so there was no point to it. I also realized what I was missing out on, and it wasn’t catching up with my friends back home; it was enjoying the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I was in.
Here, we have so much at our fingertips; the latest music, video games, online shopping, instant digital access to our friends and family, you name it, all thanks to technology. In Bhutan, what they didn’t have handed to them, they made. Music was made out of wood instruments and voices, video games were substituted with outdoors activities, and online shopping was happily replaced with long rows of little shops featuring locally-made items, where every vendor knew the next.
If there was one lesson I got out of my trip, it’s that although time is indeed valuable, what’s more valuable is how we spend it. Tomorrow morning, when I walk down the road on my way to school, I’ll pass businessmen chattering away on their phones, individuals with their earphones plugged in on the bus, and a café filled with people who seem more interested in Instagraming their orders than the people they’re with.
The world we live in is full of distractions, and we need to decide if it’s worth it. Stop what you’re doing for even one minute, realize the beauty of the country you’re in without the help of technology, and take it all in before the moment slips away.
