Set your mind on things above¶

I have just finished reading Digital Minimalism by one of my favourite authors, Cal Newport. It is a sharp and unsettling book about how to use technology as a useful tool rather that allowing it to quietly take control over your life.

The most interesting idea in the book is the contrast between what could be called the Value Economy and the Attention Economy. In a Value Economy, companies make money by selling products that have intrinsic usefulness. For example, running shoes or a Microsoft office subscription.

In the Attention Economy, the product is merely a means. Often it is free. The real commodity being sold is your attention, which is packaged and resold to advertisers. Think Facebook or YouTube.

This distinction matters because it explains something uncomfortable: these companies are not primarily motivated to make your life better. They are motivated to keep you looking. Billions of dollars are poured into engineering these products to be as addictive as possible.

I have found that I do not have the will power to fight the billions invested in addictiveness of these products. These tools do not just distract me, they literally steal me out of present moment. I feel the effects in my anxiety, my mental health, and, in the shrinking time I give to life-giving activities.

I don't know how to fight the pervasiveness of these tools. I am trying (yet again) to not use them anymore and order my life differently. This year, I am hungry to keep coming back to God. Scripture says in many different places: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart... he will make your path straight" Proverbs 3.5-6.

I am going to try and keep repeating that to myself. In all things, the only thing that I can repeatedly do for my sanity, is to surrender to God.

What is stealing you out of the present moment? What do you need to surrender to God this week?