Thank you for stealing my phone

How life without a phone helped me live more intentionally

granted a minute of idle time.

But little did I know, there was an otherwise imperceptible, intangible and indelible beauty hiding in the crevices of that empty time.

MOAZ ELAZZAZI SENIOR MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

My phone and I had an abrupt parting of ways in June of 2022 when it was stolen at a Turkish restaurant.

My friend and I were enjoying our kebabs when a thief decided they needed my iPhone 11 more than I did (in hindsight, they probably did). After the initial shock of the situation subsided, I had to come to terms with a reality that didn’t involve a phone in my pocket.

Call it an impromptu digital detox.

Contrary to my previously held belief, the world kept spinning without the omnipresent comfort of a 6.84-ounce piece of glass pressed against my thigh. I won’t lie, I was incredibly uncomfortable without the ability to anxiously swipe through my regular rotation of apps the moment I was

Within a day, I was starting to appreciate simple nuances that before now were cloaked by hundreds of Instagram memes, pseudo social situations and reposted TikToks on every platform.

One Saturday night, I was waiting to meet some friends for dinner downtown. They were running late, but without a phone, I had nothing to scroll through.

So I watched as, across the street, two beefy bouncers approached a small potted plant, squatted down and moved it a trivial three feet from where it was previously located. Something about the absurdity of the whole situation caused me to burst out laughing. My friend, wondering what was so funny, looked at me puzzled.

All I could say was,“Those guys moved a plant.”

To some, the comedic value of the situation can’t compete with the millions of sources of entertainment at our fingertips.

But in that moment, there was nothing that could have brought me more joy than seeing two oversized bouncers negotiate the location of a tiny potted plant.

I quickly realized that behind every compulsive phone pickup was a desire to stave off an old friend we were all once intimate with: boredom.

When we were all kids, boredom made up huge portions of our day. It was our job to fill that time with something, and the day became whatever our seven-yearold brains came up with.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that growing between the cracks of boredom were thoughts I didn’t know I had, passions I never knew I wanted to pursue.

Why is it that we hate boredom so much?

It might be because we’re growing up in the most anxious generation to date. Consuming content on our phones is much easier than being alone with our potentially anxious thoughts.

We’ve developed the innate reflex to turn our brains on autopilot and find comfort in allowing our screens to do the thinking for us. But it’s these thoughts we fear so much that allow us to discover who we are.

The content we consume to avoid the solitude of our minds does nothing but cloud our most profound outlooks, and in turn, our sense of self.

Of course, I now have a new iPhone that I use daily, and I’m guilty of aimlessly scrolling at times.

I know that I don’t have the self-restraint to go toe-to-toe with a multi-billion-dollar algorithm designed to capture my attention. And with no opportunists around to send me tumbling down a journey of selfdiscovery again, I’m left to my own devices to navigate my way back to a screenless existence.

Mayo Clinic says the urge to smoke lasts about five to 10 minutes. I would argue that the urge to unlock your phone lasts about just as long. Once you make it through that unholy five minutes of unadulterated human existence, you might notice something you’ve never seen before, or you might just rediscover a tiny part of yourself.

Email: moaz.elazzazi@ubspectrum.com

Chores and their tedious beauty

How helping out around the house strengthened my relationship with my mom

But the one simple aspect of my upbringing that truly shaped who I am today? Doing chores.

“Dyl, come bring up the laundry!”

DYLAN GRECO OPINIONS EDITOR

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve got the best mom anyone could ever ask for.

My unapologetically loud and Jewish mom reassures me, motivates me to take on challenges and, above all else, makes me bring our family’s laundry baskets up and down the stairs.

My dad is awesome too, but sorry, dude: this one’s about mom. (Maybe I’ll write about you in the next issue if you hook me up with a medium double quarter pounder meal from McDon’s.)

My mom did everything she could to make sure I was raised right. She gave me all the conventional mom advice to make sure I was brought up in an orderly fashion: Don’t curse, don’t talk to strangers, don’t talk back to your mother, etc.

That line has been burned into my brain. To this day, I still abide by her majesty’s command. I did other chores like sweeping the floor and cleaning the kitchen table after dinner, but bringing up the laundry just made me plain angry.

“Why is she asking me to do it?!” I would think to myself. My younger, dualvarsity athlete brother and my older sister were perfectly capable of doing it. Why is she asking me to bring up the laundry if I’m in my bed on the second floor and my mom’s right next to the laundry in the basement?

“Dyl, come get the laundry, now.”

Welp, may as well just do it before my Xbox disappears. Naturally, after being told twice, I give in and help my mom bring up all of the baskets while my younger brother laughs and plays Fortnite. I hated doing this chore as a kid, but my feelings now are a little more positive. My mom would ask me to keep her company while she sorted mountains of laundry into their designated piles and loaded our washing machine. I’d sit with my mom while she took care of the laundry for the entire house, and we would just talk about life.

I didn’t have many friends as a kid and often felt really lonely. I was bullied for being overweight, which became a main topic of conversation between me and my mom.

I’d tell my mom how upset the kids at school made me feel, and she would get really angry. She’d remind me that I didn’t have to take that crap from anyone, and then she’d tell me everything she loved about me.

When I was upset, I’d say, “No one wants to hang out with me. No one wants to be my friend.” She would simply reply with, “Well I want to hang out with you! I’ll be your friend!” I was in shambles, but that would make me laugh and forget about my loneliness for a moment.

When our LG washing machine sang its little high pitched song, she’d stuff the last pile of clothes into the laundry bas- kets, and we would haul them up the stairs. We’d drop clothes as we walked, laughing about it in the process. When we reached my parent’s room, we dumped all of the clean laundry on their bed and started folding. My dad would put on the AMC channel, so we could watch the latest episode of the “Walking Dead.”

It amazes me that a simple chore strengthened the bond between me and my mom. Sure, I complained about it when I was younger, and sometimes I still do. But then I remember how hard my mom worked to prepare me for this world, and how helpful she was in my time of need.

Now, when I hear “Dyl, come bring the laundry up,” I simply get out of bed and do it.

I don’t ask questions anymore. Why would I? I have the privilege of helping out my mom and spending some quality time with her in the process.

Email: dylan.greco@ubspectrum.com

THURSDAY, MARCH 16 2023

VOLUME 71 NUMBER 17 CIRCULATION: 3,000

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