I lost my phone yesterday, and given that i'm temporaily homeless, I also lost my main (mobile) internet connection. I was quite shocked at my emotional reaction -- somewhere around mild panic, mixed in with an intense annoyance at myself.
It could have been a lot worse: The phone's password protected, I froze it immediately after noticing I'd lost it using a handy little Google programme, and (most fortuitously) I'd also just recently bought a new phone last week, and i'm currently writing this on that (via a funky little blue tooth keyboard), en route to a phone shop where i can apparently pick up a new sim card for free if i show some I.D.
I don't think there's anything of huge value on the memory chip, or in the phone's memory: no media files of any significance and I've got the back up codes for the crypto wallet on the phone, so no loss there, other than time to download all the various apps I need.
So my feeling is that what i'm probably so upset about is the loss of my mobile data connection rather than the loss of the phone itself. TBH this shoud come as no real surprise given that phones are all about connecting people. Anyway...
Six lessons from losing my phone:
Most immediately I realised that I haven't actually stopped for several months.... I've gone through a usual college year, including all of the extra stress involved with exam season, maintained and expanded two blogs, moved house and ended up between houses, living out of bags, without really ever 'stopping' for a break. I didn't even really stop last week when I was ill. It must be a combination of dislocation and stress that led to my losing the phone (i have been a bit all over the place recently) and what I've learned is that I need a break sometime soon, so I'm taking one today and tomorrow, sort of.
Secondly, I've realised I've got into this habit of being constantly online. Somehow I've come to define 'a long time offline' as being about 2-3 hours. Being reliant on a 4G mobile connection certainly hasn't helped this. I've just had coming up for 18 hours offline... broken by sleep - basically an evening and a morning. I need longer periods offline - I'm going to aim for 3 hours in the morning and then the same in the evening, and an hour for lunch. I might also go for one whole offline day a week.
Thirdly, I've realised I'm a little bit obsessed with self-tracking. I had a pedometer on my lost phone, and my goal for July is to reach an average of 13K steps a day. I had to go out for my morning 5K (6000 ISH steps) run without my tracker. Moreover if I've lost the phone, I guess I've lost all that data! Jury's out on whether having a minor obsession with self-tracking is good or bad, but at least I'm alert to this now!
Fourthly, I've learnt that I should slow down and get back into meditation properly. I've let this slip recently.
Fifthly, it's prompted me to read books more: I did mean to bring one with me this a.m. but forgot. (Obviously I really do need a break!)
Finally, it's reminded me to try and see the positive in everything - despite the initial minor panic, I think there is a lot of good in losing this phone: in the long term it's made me realise all of the above. In short, I supposed it's reminded me that i need to use this whole time of leaving work as a 'pause and reset' time, rather than just carrying on with old habits, which I kind of was doing for the last 10 days since selling my flat.
PostScript: on getting a new phone and finding my old one...
I now have a new phone.... in fact I found out less than 18 hours after 'losing' the old one that all I'd done is left it on a particular table at work, and found it in my pigeon hole. I just wish the person who'd found it would have emailed me!