SQUIRREL!!!
Oh you know exactly what I’m referring to… you’ve either seen the movie or the preview to the movie… UP. It’s that scene where this lovable dog named Dug who has been equipped with a collar that allows his thoughts to be vocalized is addressing Carl Fredrickson and mid-sentence stops and yells “SQUIRREL!” only to return to his initial conversation with Carl. To me this scene is downright hilarious. I can’t help but laugh every time I see it, and I recreate the scene with my boys from time to time.
Well, today I’m teaching summer school and I inadvertently witnessed a similar scene in the wild, I mean in the classroom. I’m in the middle of a lesson when one of my boys’ head’s suddenly turns straight towards his suddenly visible phone. Yes, the boy had been texted. It seems that this has suddenly become the biggest distraction to my boys. If their phones suddenly vibrate with a text, before you know it their fingers are fingering a reply while they are still midsentence in conversation with a third party. I’ll give you an example:
“Hey dude, what’s going, on? Yeah, I gotta big test today in History and I haven’t studied for it yet. I’m not sure I’m gonna… TEXT!… … … get higher than a C on it.”
Yeah, it’s funny seeing Dug have the reaction he has to the sudden “possible” appearance of a squirrel just out of the corner of his eye. But is it funny because we’ve seen dog’s do that, or because we’ve seen it happen to our friends and acquaintances. We have a clinical name for this exact type of reaction to an outside stimulus… ADD. Ok so ADD is a bit more elaborate than this, but man it’s ridiculous how easily we can be distracted from what we are doing. And it’s not just kids. It’s everybody.
Sometimes I log into facebook just to see what is going on, only to walk away and do something important. If it just so happens that what I’m doing is within earshot of the computer, something interesting happens from time to time. I hear a blip… someone has IM’d me. It takes everything in me sometimes to stop myself from dropping what I’m doing just to see who may have sent me a message. Curiosity just takes over. Usually I’m pretty good about letting it go, but from time to time…
It is our curiosity about what is going on in the world that keeps us from turning off our phones when we go to important functions. I remember being at a graduation where everyone has been asked to turn off their phones. Within minutes a call comes in somewhere and you see someone fiddling with their pocket or their purse to grab their phone… maybe they thought it was on silence. One person picks up the phone looks to see who it is, silences the phone and puts it away. OK, now they’ve fixed the problem. Except two minutes later their phone goes off again. This time he picks up and starts talking to whoever called. Maybe it’s important… this guy’s a doctor or a lawyer or something. Then I see the guy start laughing and saying, “too funny, man… I’ll catch you later!” Couldn’t have been too important. And all this happened during the salutatory speech. Total disregard to all those around him, and just because something else was more important than the moment, which turns out to have been that guy’s son’s graduation! Talk about the GIANT SQUIRREL!
Everything seems to be more important than the now, somehow. It doesn’t matter what we are doing, so many of us are willing to separate ourselves from it to see if there is something MORE important. You see it at mass all the time. I personally can’t understand how somebody at church with the entire family needs to be checking their phone incessantly, or has to leave it on. Isn’t the moment important enough. Can’t everything just wait ONE HOUR. How about eating dinner with the family at night. I’ve been to a restaurant where a family is eating and good old dad (or sometimes mom) is on the cellular yukking it up with someone not there. Says a lot about what you think about your family at that moment, huh?
Now I understand that there are emergencies. When I go out with Dania alone, I have my phone on in case there is an emergency concerning my kids. But if someone else calls, that can wait. In fact, I try to make it a habit to ignore the first call… not even look at the number. If it’s an emergency the second call WILL follow, believe me. But I need to make sure I give the moment its due. Enjoy the now. Don’t let some “SQUIRREL” distract the here and now.
I’m not perfect of course. I am easily distracted. But today I definitely realized how easily we let our minds wander especially when we put ourselves in a situation where we ALLOW the distractions. Maybe leaving the phone off or the computer logged off can help us enjoy a moment or keep us focused on what is important for at least one short moment.
You know, I’m going to take my own advice. I’m logging off. I’m gonna separate myself from the computer for a while and I’m going to turn off my phone. Then I can en- SQUIRREL… … … joy the rest of my day.