This week: Spiritual Space Edited by: Jeff  
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"Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief."
-- C.S. Lewis
About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of your regular editors for the Noticing Newbies Official Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 400 newsletters across the site during that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email or the handy feedback field at the bottom of this newsletter!  |
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Spiritual Space
One of my favorite new podcasts over the past year has been Offline with Jon Favreau, a show from one of the hosts of the extremely popular Pod Save America podcast. A former Obama speechwriter, Favreau created Offline to explore our modern-day online existence and diminishing attention spans. Jon and one of his colleagues just embarked on a several week challenge to break themselves of their smartphone addictions, and it got me thinking about how those efforts can benefit one's spirituality.
Did you know that the average person (ages 16-64) spends 3 hours and 43 minutes looking at their smartphone every single day? And that, on average, people pick up their phones to check them at least 58 times a day?  That's a lot of time being spent staring at your smartphone ... and it doesn't even factor in the amount of time we stare at other screens like televisions and computer monitors.
Not all screen time is bad, of course. There are plenty of things you can do on a smartphone that contribute to your overall usage but wouldn't be considered a bad thing, per se. Using it for email at work, or to find directions somewhere using a map app, for example. Or any of a number of apps to manage your calendar, household, communication with others, etc. All of that can be a good use of screen time. But there's also passive screen time, which has more negative effects. Endlessly scrolling through social media, or binge watching several seasons of a television show, or playing games that aren't cognitively challenging can all adversely affect your mental health and your attention span.
Your attention span is one of the easiest things to jeopardize in the modern world. There's always something vying for your attention, and a lot of business models (including a large number of app developers for smartphones) are based on getting you to spend as much time on a particular company's platform as possible. Many people find the idea of downtime, or being alone with their thoughts to be anxiety-inducing, and reach for the easy comfort of passive screen time to ease that anxiety.
How often are do you find yourself bored these days?
When was the last time you saw someone standing around waiting for their ride, or sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office, or at a social event of some kind ... and they weren't glued to their phones?
People are becoming more and more inclined to reach for the quick fix of the low hanging fruit offered by a smartphone and social media, so much so that many of us have forgotten what it's like to just be alone with our thoughts. Or to make casual conversation with a stranger rather than withdrawing into our own digital world. I'll admit, I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. I definitely use my smartphone and my various online activities as a crutch when I'm feeling uncomfortable or anxious.
The problem I've started to notice is that when we don't create space for ourselves to think and process, we don't achieve any higher-level cognitive processes, or more substantive and satisfying experiences. And when it comes to one's spirituality, that can have a really damaging effect. Spirituality, whatever your particular brand or set of religious beliefs, is almost always rooted in practices of intentionality and reflection. If we're constantly reaching for our phone every time we have a single free moment, trying to fill it up with something else, where do you create the space in your life to be spiritual?
Consider how you can reclaim some of that attention span and dedicate it to your spiritual pursuits. Consider how you can reclaim some of your attention span for literally anything else other than passive screen time. That's not to say you can't enjoy your passive screen time here and there, but 3 hours and 43 minutes of every day is a lot. Assuming you sleep for eight hours a night, that's nearly 25% of your waking life that you're spending looking at a screen. Imagine what you could accomplish if you cut 5-10% off that total. Five percent of a sixteen-hour day is 48 minutes. With 48 extra minutes in every day, you could accomplish the following in a year:
 Read the entire Bible cover to cover.
Write two novels (assuming 500 words a day)
Lose 50 pounds (assuming roughly 30 minutes of cardio and mild dieting)
Increase your income by $5,475 (assuming $20/hour)
Gain additional quality time for your important relationships
We only have space for the things in our lives that we make space for. The world will always have ways of occupying your time and vying for your attention. One of the best things you can do for your own mental health and spiritual growth is to set aside dedicated times where you're intentionally pursuing something, whether that's a personal or professional goal, developing a new habit/skill, or building a better quality spiritual experience.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" | "Blogocentric Formulations" |
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EXCERPT: “I can do this. It’ll be revolutionary. The world won’t be the same. I just need a little more money and time,” Danny Hama muttered as he hunched over his small work desk. He assumed his wife, Arinya, was listening to him. She had long since left the room, being intimately acquainted with this dreamer’s ramblings after years of enduring them. She faked a communication on her Holographic Personal Assistant as an excuse to leave, but Danny was so engrossed in his work that her effort was unnecessary. He had not noticed her leave.
EXCERPT: After four long years in college and endless studying and hard work a year of student teaching at St. Mary's Catholic School, Eddie finally earned a position teaching first grade here. He was so excited and full of energy and ideas. Standing in front of his class of thirty first graders, their eager little eyes beaming up at him as if he were some idol they had never seen before, he was happy for the first time in many years. Years of a lousy childhood raised by an abusive mother who took every chance she had to inflict pain on him were suddenly over. Those chains of sadness, depression, and torture had finally ended.
EXCERPT: Sometimes I wonder why I was created. Why did God place me in this universe? Why am I here now? Frequently, it feels like there is no purpose -- day rolls into another day, and another day, and another day until we are old and grey and ultimately dead! For what?
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Spiritual: May 17, 2023 Issue [#11974]
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