My husband and I decided to take the kids to the South of Lebanon to swim and play in the sand. We went to an area called Sour. The further you go out of the city of Beirut, the cleaner the beaches are and the safer the water is for us to swim in. It was about a two hour drive to get there. We reached to my brother in laws house, unpacked our things and headed to the beach. (That’s the view from his balcony.) My kids were so excited and couldn’t wait to jump right in.
I decided to leave my phone at home. I wanted to disconnect from the world, focus on my kids and play with them without being distracted by technology. I only had a week left until my summer vacation would over, and I would be back at school working. I wanted to enjoy those two simple days with them and give them my undivided attention.
We live in a world where technology can easily take up your life without us even feeling it. It seems like we can’t live without our gadgets and connectivity, and yet it distracts us all. We are all addicted to our screens but are barely aware of it. But why?! I truly don’t understand! Whatever it is, it can wait.
We reached and ran to the sea and swam. To be honest it felt weird, as though I was “naked” not checking social media nor chatting with anyone. A part of me was missing!
My husband and kids were with me so I knew the world wouldn’t stop without me checking anything for a few hours. We reached there at 1pm and left at 8pm. It felt absolutely amazing; utter stress free time which seemed to go slower than usual. Neither my husband nor I had a watch on us. When I’d ask what the time was he didn’t know. He left his phone in the bag far away from us. We had no concept of time! Which was simply wonderful. We had lunch, joked, played, sang and went back to build sand castles and swam in the sea. Next thing you know it was 8pm, and the sun was about to set. We packed up and left. It felt so good. Being there with my family and enjoying every minute without technology eating us up alive! My kids had a blast and that’s what was more important, and I was there fully with them, mentally and physically. I actually enjoyed every minute of it with them. I vowed to myself that I should do this for at least an hour each day; put my phone away and enjoy my kids before they grow up and I realize in a blink of an eye that I wasted all that time because of a phone, because of social media. The present moment is all we have, and people say it all the time, but we don’t actually take the time to live it. What are our goals if we lose sight of the reason we have them.
The reason behind everything for me is my family, and I vow to enjoy that beautiful truth to its maximum capacity. Cherish every moment you’ve got.
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