Day 64 - Cancelled Internet on My Phone

I've always had an addictive personality.  High school and college definitely had their activities (and people).  In grad school when I officially gave my life to Christ I probably read every single book written by Max Lucado and a handful of other authors, bought every Christian CD at the time, and purchased every Christian t-shirt and bracelet I could find.  After grad school picked up running but it wasn't enough to just run 5ks, I needed to run marathons.  And of course couldn't just do a week of random acts of kindness...I had to do a year.

These stories of 100% passion (aka obsession, aka addiction) are sprinkled all throughout my life and will continue I'm sure because it is just a part of my wiring.  They define me in a way and lead to sometimes sporadic and whimsical decisions in their wake.  So not only do I get something on my mind and am unable to let it go, I also have a tendency to make decisions without a lot of contemplation behind them.  A reason Chris is great for me.  He acts as my voice of reason on most of these in-the-moment acts and decisions.  Today though he is out of town so I am left to my own devices.

Along these same lines if I have something I'm trying to refrain from I go into it with the best intentions in the world but always fail miserably.  For example the frozen credit card idea would never work for me.  I had to physically cut my credit cards up and throw them away before honestly starting to paying off debt.  Tried to avoid Facebook last year during Lent...it last 3 days.  So knowing it's available is always my security blanket and I typically resort back after a short period.

So for today's random act of kindness the recipients (my family primarily) are not so anonymous but the act is definitely random in that it is being made purely on a whim inspired by an article read yesterday.  It's something I've been trying to work on but failing at miserably.  Dear Mom on the iPhone

So for today's random act of kindness I have decided to remove my entire internet data plan from my cell phone.  No more Facebook, constant access to emails, music, internet access, etc.  As soon as I arrived home this morning after dropping the girls off at school, before any families arrived, I called and made the change.  Calls and texts only.  I didn't want to put too much thought into it because I knew I would probably change my mind.  It'll be like a Band-aid.  It will definitely sting at first but once it's off...it will be liberating.

It will leave me with more time to dedicate to my family (more time than I even realize or would be willing to admit).  Actually spending time with them while listening to them...instead of partially listening with my face in my phone.  I  will definitely miss some things but this is so worth the sacrifice (as inappropriate as that word really is in this context).  I feel good about this one and it will be effective March 23rd so I have a few weeks to prepare myself.

Day 64 - Removed cell phone internet

**UPDATE:  I chickened out on this one and went about a week before getting the service back.  I'm definitely replacing this act with another and have made a concerted effort to be more aware of my cell phone use when spending time with the family.