every human being matters

I sat in the mechanics waiting room the other day waiting for my car to be inspected. I was prepared, plied with my headphones, book, journal, cell phone. My intention was to shut off the noise of the traffic outside the shop, the clatter from the mechanics’ tools, and conversations from other customers chattering on their phones.

As I sat, I busied myself finalizing my daily tasks list and preparing to do my morning meditations when I noticed an older gentleman sitting nearby. His gaze was one of peaceful waiting, watching the cars pass by the front windows. I became curious. How could he just sit there doing nothing? No phone for doom scrolling entertainment, no book or magazine to pass the time. Just sitting, watching, and waiting.

As I watched, I found myself recalling my childhood. It was time before the invention of the cell phone, and corded party lined phones (shared public connections on household phonelines) were all we had to talk on if we wanted to reach another human voice beyond the walls of our dwellings. It was a time before the need to fill my moments with something to do.

I remember being at my great aunt’s house. She had a second floor enclosed porch – a “sun room” – that looked out on the streets below. It was hot and stuffy, the windowed walls having no ventilation or means to open them. I hated it.

Yet I was fascinated seeing all the activity of the people below me. And like the older gentleman, I watched and waited, entertaining myself by observing all that was going on around me while I waited for my parents to take me home.

As I went back to my meditation tracks for relaxation, it suddenly struck me. Without all the gadgets I brought with me, I was unable to just be still. I’d forgot what it was like before I could even read.

I couldn’t entertain myself anymore.

I was bored, and I feared it so much that I’d prepared myself to avoid it, even just waiting a few minutes until the car was done.

I had become a human DOing instead of a human BEing.

But the lesson didn’t stay long…

After a conference I attended the following day with my granddaughter, we went to the grocery store to pick up some food. The conference and grocery store took most of the day. By the time I got home, I desperately needed to unwind.

Out came the cell phone and the scrolling for the perfect relaxation meditation to use ensued. I realized that all of them had become tiresome. So I turned to doom scrolling to occupy my precious time.

What the algorithms were feeding me were deep dives into trinkets, curiosities, and fear-mongering. Instead of unwinding, I realized that the phone, that form of busyness, had become an addiction. Instead of unwinding, I became wound up with the feeling that I had become trapped inside the 1984 futuristic vision of the coming Utopian world.

After a depressing one-sided conversation with my granddaughter, I determined what action I needed to take to break this habit. I needed to drive as much friction between that form of “entertainment” and the reality of life here and now.

I needed to become a human BEing again, not a human DOing…

So I took all my portable devices, hid all those apps, and decided I needed to relearn to just Be…and to play again. To become the person I’d lost in the hustle of a rapidly changing, over-busy world, it was essential that I disconnect with the technology and reengage with the world around me.

Like the gentleman in the mechanics’s shop and the animals who do not concern themselves with their future life, I needed to focus on today, not tomorrow. I needed to stop the rapid frenzy, fears, and curiosities I had embraced to get a dopamine hit, and relearn to embrace just being alive once more.

I didn’t need all those “mindfulness meditations”. I just needed to be. What was natural within me – within my own grasp – had disappeared beneath a world of always “needing to know” and always needing to “do”. I’d lost sight of what it means to be fully human.

At the conference, I saw that fears about economic instability, job losses, government surveillance, and injustices are exaggerated—they’ve existed as long as someone seeks to dominate others.

Even if it was growing exponentially, as it always has, man has still managed to survive it and rise above it all. In spite of the natural disasters and civil unrest, there were those who didn’t get caught in the maelstroms.

What is coming is inevitable – but how it affected me was not.

So I changed my own perspectives…

Having forgotten how to live in the world around me, I realized that I needed to learn to accept where I was at. I was to grow where God planted me. Regardless of what that looked like.

To remember, memorize, and be mesmerized by the beauty of nature and a sunrise’s simplicity. To be astonished by an unusual insect landing on my pages. To hear the whisper of the wind and feel it brush against my skin. To embrace the unhurried pace of real life happening all around me—instead of on an app or screen—and reconnect with the world I am living in firsthand.

Right now, this moment is more meaningful and exciting than any device could offer. This is life, and experiencing it is everything life has to offer.

So I began to spend my mornings, after my chores, outside with the animals, my breakfast, and my coffee. And just sat. Spending those precious moments just drinking it all in.

Nothing revitalizes the soul like embracing life’s precious moments. No meditation compares to the growth from simply being present in the moment.

Nothing starts the day better than simply sitting and doing nothing.