No Cell Phone Equals No Life?

Recently I had a friend become worried when I told her I will not be getting another cell phone when my current phone dies. It has managed to stay alive for five years and has a few buttons missing but it is only a matter of time. I'm pretty determined to do it. "How will I reach you?  How will we set up time to see each other?  Texting is how we always talk, what will happen?"

All valid questions. But I thought about it later and I wish I had said this, "what will happen is you will see more often."  This is a friend I rarely see because we live a few hours away from each other. Yet, in the last year I've see her more than I have ever seen her before. The reason for that is because in the process of minimalising my life, I have been finding more time to see the people I really care about. The people I really want to see. As a result, I've been able to see my friend more often too. And not just her but many other people I love and care about too. 

Last weekend I was sitting at home with my daughter crocheting on the couch. (Since I am staying away from media distractions, I am spending more time teaching my daughter how to sew, weave, and even crochet). My husband had just told me that he would be working through the weekend. I had this moment where I thought, " I should see if my friend is home this weekend and my daughter and I can go spend the night with her."  I ended up not doing it because it was late but I had this realization that I likely would not have done that before. I would have been too tired, too exhausted by the weekend to even think about doing that. Even thinking about it would have exhausted me. My to do list of things to do around the house would have kept me captive. 

Here's what I realized as I was driving home after meeting with her...  I think getting rid of my cell phone will likely free me up even more. I will see people more often. I won't have the smart phone distraction anymore so my thoughts will be calm, even and steady. I won't have the false illusion that I am connecting with people via media when I'm really not. I will be able to wrap my mental energy around setting up time to see people I care about.  More often. 

I had another friend ask me, "what will you do in an emergency?"  I do plan to get a simple pay for minutes as I go phone for my car. But that's it. I'm not interested in maintaining a $180 cell phone plan. We did recently get it down to $120. But that is still too much. In ten years, that will amount to $14,400. That's enough to buy a tiny house, that's a year income for some people.  I want to retire early and young. We can't if we carry these kinds of expenses on our back. 

I must also address the access of cell phones everywhere. We are still thinking of the days when we had an emergency, we had to walk a few blocks to the nearest pay phone. Those days are over. Everyone and their ten year old has a phone now. If there's an emergency, all I need to do is ask someone to call 911 for me and chances are, six people will be available to do this at any given moment, as well as tweet about it, take my photo and read about crop circles in Malaysia at the same time.  It doesn't really make sense for me to have a cell phone when there are so many available to use.

I wish I could give you some really solid reasons and data for not using a cell phone. I'm sure if I dug hard enough, I could find stats and numbers that support a cell phone free lifestyle. But here is what it really boils down to for me: it doesn't feel right to have one. I know, I know. What does that even mean?  I'm not sure. All I know is that for a few years now, there has been a gut feeling that cell phones are not good for us. With the rise of autism, mental health disorders, cancers and much more. I'm concerned that we are introducing so many things to our environment without fully knowing the long term implications. But it goes deeper than that for me. Sometimes we need to trust our instincts. Sometimes, something just feels... Well, wrong. Kind of like when you're walking down a dark alleyway and you can't logically explain it but you know you are not safe. And so you turn around. That is how I feel about cell phones. I don't have the logical and analytical reasons now but I do have the gut feeling. And part of my journey in minimalism is being true to myself and trusting myself more often. And so that means, following this icky feeling I have about media, electronics and cell phones and avoiding them. 

So what will happen when I ditch my phone?  I predict that a lot of things will happen. Things will change. I will go back to a $15 a month home phone. I will save money. But I predict that most of those changes will be for the better. And my life will be better. And so will others around me. Because they will be seeing more of me in the flesh. More often.