What I Learned After 100 Days of Choosing Stillness Over Scrolling
I thought I was just checking my phone. I was actually disappearing into it.
I’m realising I’m getting closer to death with every single breath.
Lately, I’ve really been battling the need to scroll on my phone. The devices we have in our life have become so addictive—even when you are consciously trying to stay off them, it almost feels like the body craves them at every moment. It’s a constant battle between reminding myself of the importance of the present moment and the body’s urge to get an instant fix of dopamine.
I can’t believe how amazing our world is. Looking deeply into a big tree in the grasslands, I’m reminded of just how small I am compared to the rest of the world. There is so much out there. We’ve all gotten so used to living under the assumption that because our phones connect us to the entire world… we’ve experienced it.
We are living inside the four walls of the digital world that our phones have built for us. The algorithm has created us a room, and its greatest trick is that it makes us believe we are more open-minded than we actually are. We’re being fed what we think we want—not what we actually need.
In the midst of the flood of algorithmic content that’s been filling my timelines lately, I am—like many—trying to battle with it. Not willing to give up. Like a wounded warrior in his final battle. The world is becoming so digital it’s hard to imagine life without our devices. So lately, I’ve been focusing on something that I think can leave a profound change on anyone’s life.
It’s the idea of building paths back home.
This year, I promised myself to try and meditate every day. Nothing else allowed. No special breathwork techniques, courses, guided meditations on YouTube, cold plunges, or endless journaling. I simply wanted to give myself something so simple and use it to enter the very depths of my being.
Watching the breath, over and over again, as an observer.
Some days it’s so easy to just grab our phones. To use them when we are stressed, anxious, or bored. In doing so, we miss the very magic of what it means to be human.
Existing.
Focusing on my breath for extended periods of time this year has taken me into such deep places of my soul. I have realised the true miracle of existence. The sound of my own heart beating, and the way my breath interchanges with the outside world and back into my body. There is a beautiful cosmic dance going on—even in the midst of a lot of destruction, killing, and heartbreak.
I think our phones have become such a cheap excuse. We think we have to fill every single moment with something to consume. In doing so, our desire to consume has become so uncontrollable that we simply can’t sit still and listen to the music of the cosmos.
I came to the realisation that we are all here to either run away from ourselves or build stronger paths back home. Where is home?
Well, home is the now. It’s here. It’s this present moment. Beyond your attachment to your identity, who you think you should be, and how you should act. It’s you—beyond the masks you’ve learned to put up to society in order to fit in and not be left out. There is a part of you that is everything to and attached to nothing. When you are able to return to this part of yourself, love and peace naturally flow and ooze from your being. If you’re lucky enough to even be reading this post, or to have time to meditate, you are so eternally blessed. Not everyone has the same opportunity. Yet even knowing this, the devices around us will still be calling for us to stay addicted, numb, and unwilling to look deeply into our own nature.
I’m in the business of building roads back home now. I could be having the worst day or a difficult morning, and there is only ever one thing I must do—build another road back home. Every single time I return to my breath, every single time I catch myself doing something I know I shouldn’t be doing, it’s like I’m building roads back home to the ever-present moment that is beyond time.
Being someone who is present and has a great presence isn’t about being Yoda. You don’t have to be calm, cool, and poised all the time. I’m learning that we must be willing to accept, with great humility, how ordinary we are. Then be willing to do extraordinary things through the constant repetition of ordinary tasks. Every single time you catch yourself when you’ve become like a zombie doom-scrolling and decide to come back to the breath for a few minutes, you are building stronger paths back to the eternal present moment.
This will be a never-ending process. You have to have the humility to accept this. To know that you are not perfect, and that your acceptance of this allows you to return to your perfect self—which cannot be labelled. You must treat yourself with love and compassion to be able to do this, because you are going to ‘mess up’ so many times. You’re going to start to realise how often your focus goes to your devices or to negative things which do not serve you.
I am learning to enjoy this process of returning back home.
I am also understanding that it’s a process.
One that will have no end.
If we all begin building stronger roads back home to the present moment, we will become more understanding and compassionate beings. If we are willing to do so over a long period of our lives, we will make more loving decisions. We will create the causes for more peace and great joy. We will be able to experience mundane moments with a miracle-like fascination.
Our life is made up of moments.
May we wake up.
To realise that there is only one true miracle.
This present moment.
If This Reflection Moved You…
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It helps others find this work and keeps me writing slow, honest pieces like this.
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Have you ever healed with nature?
Or sat with silence after heartbreak?
I’d love to hear what it taught you.
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May you walk in peace,
— Matt
Modern Monk