#I am an addict

A guest piece from friend and colleague, Jason Harrison, MD of M&C Saatchi Abel. Read it and weep.

Hi.
My name is Jason.
I am the Managing Director of a very successful advertising agency.
And I am an addict.

More precisely, I am a phone addict. I know this because:
I feel anxious when it’s upstairs and I’m downstairs.
I cannot for the life of me leave it at home when I leave the house.
I feel worried when I haven’t checked for that little red notification banner every 15 minutes.
I feel incomplete if I haven’t cycled through all seven different ways I use to communicate every hour.

I cannot drive without trying to text or check important e-mails.

I feel depressed when someone hasn’t liked, shared or re-tweeted my musings.

At Alcoholics Anonymous the first thing they try and get you to do is talk about your problems with a safe group of confidantes (part of the healing process). So I thought why not short-circuit this addiction thing completely by sharing this problem with all my “friends” in the most public way possible. Shock the system = quicker result?

So here are some honest and open confessions of an ad man:

On the first Thursday of every month, I get my closest friends around a table at the local pub for a drink. We fit this it in between work and nappies at home. The idea is to re-connect. These are people that I have known for the better part of 25 years. I have had the best times of my life with these guys. I repay that commitment by checking Facebook underneath the table every 15 minutes to see what is going on with my “other mates”.

Regularly, my parents invite the family over for a braai and whilst my mom tries to talk to me because she hadn’t seen me in a few weeks, I check work e-mails. This is a person who has pretty much dedicated 36 years of her life to helping me through every conceivable situation life has thrown my way. I repay that commitment by not even bothering to look up from a 5cm square screen because “replying to all” is far more important.

Most nights, I come home, eat supper and then lie on the couch to start a vicious circle of checking up on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, gmail and Whatsapp whilst my wife tries to tell me about the hell day she has had with our 4 month old daughter and 2 ½ year old son. This is a person who has pretty much dedicated her life to me for the last 13 years (our children now most recently) and is someone who physically cannot control her emotions because her thyroid is dead, hasn’t been out of the house alone in 4 months, and still manages a smile when I walk through the door. I repay that commitment by “liking” that highly entertaining youtube clip about LolCats.

Every morning when my son comes to curl up with me at 6am, instead of taking in that very special moment for the next hour, I frantically start replying to e-mails with one hand whilst he renders the other arm useless. This is a person who has pretty much decided that I am THE BEST thing in the whole world and hangs on my every word. I repay that commitment by starting my day angry with what has not been done.

And the absolute low point happened last week. I had my 4 month old daughter on my lap. This is the same daughter who was hospitalised for the better part of 3 weeks and who almost didn't make it. She was smiling for the first time. She smiles right from the eyes. It is the most beautiful thing. This is the little person who knows nothing else than relying on my wife for 100% of her needs, but still managed to gift me that smile when I had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. I repaid that commitment by checking if one of my client’s Twitter feeds had been updated correctly because we were launching a massive national campaign for them.
 
Reading that back, I feel hollow and embarrassingly pathetic.

How has it come to this? Seriously, how on earth has it come to this? 

I am not that guy. Something has to change and it has to change quickly.

That change is called Lent and it’s starting today. If you didn’t know, Lent is when you commit to giving up your luxuries as a form of penitence to mark the 40 days before Easter Sunday.

It’s become tradition that every year I give up all the “fun stuff” – any form of booze, chocolates, chips, fizzy drinks, red meat & sugar.  Yes, it is hard, and truth be told by the time Easter Sunday comes around, the defining event at the very heart of the Christian belief system is fleetingly acknowledged as I look forward to tucking into a deliciously fat & juicy rump seared to perfection and washed down with a well rounded Cab Sav of pre-millennial vintage.

But this year I have decided to give up my phone for the next 40 days and 40 nights. 

In advertising we need a memorable catch phrase to clarify the thinking, so I’ve decided to call it “40 days of appstinance” (see what I did there?).

So this is the deal I have made with myself:

1. I will still use my phone to take calls and check work e-mail between 8am – 6pm but after that it goes off and gets put in the safe (I will give my wife the key as we addicts cannot be trusted).

2. On top of that all social apps are gone. Erased. Goodbye Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Tumblr and all that other meaningless virtual drivel.

I am checking out, unliking, no longer sharing.  

I am leaving the high speed, virtual highway to appreciate the slow and calm wonders that I am so blessed to receive every single day. 

I am completely unplugging my virtual life so I can remember what it is like to live my ‘real’ life.

I realize that announcing my retirement from social media on social media is a little like an alcoholic getting everyone together in the pub for his last drink. But it needs to be witnessed. (And its already killing me that I won't be able to see your responses.)

But here’s to #Cold Turkey. #Anxiety. #Cold sweats. #Temptation

Acceptance… White noise… Bliss.

See you on the flip side.

#Maybe