Stripped Down?!?

Stripped Down.  No, I don’t mean stripped naked!  But, I mean stripped down from all of the technology that surrounds us and is supposed to make our lives easier.  I watched a program on Oprah on this topic.  They had a family of 4 - husband, wife, 15 year old son and 5 year old son.  They showed their day to day life and showed how the technology and busyness of today has stripped this family of FAMILY.  The very thing they were trying to hard to keep together was falling apart.  So, the challenge for them was to take 7 days and not have any cell phones, no texting, no emails or computer, no microwave etc.  They rose up to the challenge and lived to tell about it.  They first had to get their house in order because it had gotten to be such a mess and so unorganized because they were so busy.  And chaos is such a bad feeling to live with (at least for me).  Oh, and they had to tell each other every day that they loved each other.  It was very interesting.  For the parents, it brought out a lot of issues that they hadn't been dealing with.  After the week, they looked at everything and evaluated how they could bring those things back into their lives (technology) but in balance.  Because after all, we do live in this world that is so inundated with stuff.  So, I asked myself if this was something that my family should try for a week.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we do a lot of the things that this family didn’t do.  They didn’t eat dinner together.  The parents didn’t have date nights or family nights.  They didn’t make time for each other.  I feel like we do all of those things.  We eat together almost every night.  Randy and I have always had date night.  Usually once a week.  And we try to do things with our family on a regular basis.  So, I thought that maybe we would just tweak some areas and see how that goes.  I don’t know about you but we are always trying to improve on things.  So, maybe we limit time on the computer (including me!)  Anyway, it was interesting and something to think about with your own family.  One thing that the teen said he learned was “to BE present wherever you are.”  Wow!  How many times have you been with a teen or even adults who are texting when you are with them.  Or you can just tell that their mind is else where when you are talking to them?  It’s so important to really listen to people when you are with them.  I think that is an art that we have lost.  And another thing that the organizer said was, “if you are so busy and you think you are doing all these good things, just look around.  Are you really doing so much good stuff when you are so busy?”  Somebody pays for that busyness.  And those kids on the show really just wanted to be together.  So, anyway, it’s something to think about.  Will you be stripped down????