For someone studying in a government owned school, power outages aren't anything new to me. There was an instance where the power holding company in the school environment made a decision that we (the students) have been having too much electricity supply in the past week and as a result, their machines had to go on a two week hiatus to refuel. That meant we weren't going to have any form of light for two weeks in the school environment. Absurd as it sounded at first, it happened. I survived two weeks without as much as having the socket next to my bed come alive with electricity.
The first three days, I didn't feel the loss of my devices as my power bank came in really really handy. But on the third day, my power bank didn't have any power in it's bank again. My phone was on the brink of going off. I couldn't afford using it for anything other than receiving calls from my parents and kind-hearted coursemates who had information to give me. I felt so detached from the life I was used to.
80% of my daily activities are performed on my devices. I love reading a lot. I can hardly go by a day without opening an ebook to read. Academic or non-academic. Even in school, most of the materials given to us were usually in the soft copy format. The lecturers rarely even sold textbooks anymore because most of the textbooks were converted to pdfs and distributed among students. The few that sold their materials in hardcopy did that while threatening to reduce the marks of those that refused to purchase their textbooks.
So, on the third day, almost all my devices were powered off. The little power few had, had to be reserved for the most critical of critical situations. I went back to my stack of books. My hardcopy books I had abandoned since the invent, and my knowledge of e-books. I went back to them and picked one I hadn't read in a while out. That feeling of reading a paperback after over two years of being hung up on the books in my phone was beautiful.
That experience also helped me explore and appreciate the beauty of nature. I love being surrounded by grasses, flowers and plants. When I didn't have a book to read or I finished reading a book and wasn't in the right mental state to start another, I went on walks in areas surrounded by vegetations. I even discovered that we had a garden behind our hostel. A hostel I've stayed in for over two years, I didn't know there was a garden behind it. Well, that became one of my favourite places to spend my time.
I also don't know how but I feel less motivated to work during plug-outs. I go about my chores with a different spirit. Almost all the time, I have music playing from my phone or my music player or even my earpods. I do literally everything with music. Music is motivation to me. In a situation where my devices are down or I don't have access to music, the simple domestic chores i was used, start to feel more like a hassle. I do it with no sing-alongs, no dancing, no taking deep breaths when a particular verse or beat or rhythm hits your soul. Just plain silence and that's not something I really like. I actually don't know if it's a good or bad thing. It's just something I do.
Plug-outs can have you spending time out of your comfort zone. They can be sudden but sometimes, they bring us back to the reality that is called life. They're good situations also. Through them, if you're a phone addict like me, you get to discover a new habit for yourself and embrace change.
This is my entry into the digital lifestyle community prompt for the week. You can find more about it here
Thanks for reading
