We had a new member at our crafting group this week. During the customary “introduce yourself” talk, she mentioned that she had forgotten how much she loved crafting, until she recently forced herself to get back to it. Once she got started, all the good feelings came flooding back and now she’s both cursing the wasted time away from the hobby, and embracing the future with joy.
I asked her what made her step away from crafting. Family crisis? Home projects? Work obligations? Some other hobby that captured her time and attention? Medical issues?
She stared off into space for a moment before sighing and saying, “No, it was none of that. I just… Stopped. It was like one day I was doing projects and then the next, I quit. It wasn’t quite like that, of course. At first I told myself I was just tired and would do something tomorrow. But then the next day I didn’t do anything either. Or the next. Then maybe I did a small craft, but the next day I didn’t. It wasn’t like I didn’t have free time. I did. It was just that I started spending that free time scrolling on my phone, or flipping through the streaming services. It just ate my time without me realizing it.”
Oh, sister, I hear you.
I hear so many people tell the same story. Somehow, without ever consciously deciding to quit their hobbies, sports, friendships, or whatever, they find themselves opted out of the things they used to enjoy. It’s always the same refrain. “I forgot how much I loved XYZ.”
Here’s my take: You didn’t forget. You’ve always know that you loved to read, knit, paint, etc. What happened is that your time and brain were stolen from you by the phone that lives in your pocket all day. The overlords that want your time and attention on your device don’t care that you are no longer enjoying your life. They only care that you are glued to that screen.
It’s hard to resist. I think I held out longer than most, both in getting a smartphone at all, and finding myself sucked into the thing. But even I, who knows exactly how these things are being programmed to enthrall us, have found myself losing time and forgetting other beloved activities. I catch myself doomscrolling an hour away, or wasting time playing just “one more level” on some inane game. Or one video of an old song leads to some other video and then another, none of which is related to anything I want to be doing.
Our new craft group member isn’t unique. It often happens slowly, without you realizing it. You get caught in a weak moment. Maybe you’re sick, tired, overwhelmed, or sad and things like hiking, reading, or painting just seem like too much of an effort one day. Maybe you give yourself permission to scroll “just this once” and you’ll hit your hobbies tomorrow.
But tomorrow becomes tomorrow, and then tomorrow again. Maybe you make an effort to try and get back to your beloved activities, but the effort doesn’t stick. You’re back to scrolling the next day. You probably engage in this back and forth for a while, aware that you’re losing something, but not fully sure how to stop the slide. Unaware of just how precious what you’re losing really is.
And then one day you realize you’ve “forgotten” the things you used to love. Maybe a friend invites you on a hike and you remember the joy. Or maybe you make a Herculean effort to pry yourself away from the infinite scroll and force yourself back to life. Oh, there’s that spark! There’s the love!
Of course, everything good comes with a bad side. Remembering your lost things brings up feelings of guilt and shame. There is a tendency to beat yourself up once you realize how much time you’ve lost in the scrolling wastelands. Please don’t. It isn’t your fault.
You didn’t consent to giving up your hobbies and other loves of your life. I’ll bet money that you never consciously said, “I would rather scroll than hang out with my best friends, or spend an afternoon engaging in my favorite activity.” You got caught up in what is essentially an experiment in mind control. Devices and apps are researched and designed to be addictive. They prey upon our desire for novelty and stimulation in ways that the regular world does not do. We evolved to take joy in doing, in being, not in passively enduring. But the makers of these traps understand that there are shortcuts to our pleasure centers and they make sure to take advantage of every single one. They’ve hacked your dopamine, and with it, sapped all the joy out of the things you used to love.
I’ll repeat: This isn’t your fault. It’s also not your fault that it’s going to take more than one afternoon at a craft club, or one dinner with friends to make you stick with your forgotten joys.
Once you find the joy again, the hard task is to keep it. It may seem easy. After all, now that you’re aware of what you’ve lost, won’t you fight harder to keep it? Maybe. For a while. Until the next time you’re tired, or fed up, or sad and the scroll is the easier pacifier. You’re going to have to fight every day to actively choose the joy over the devices.
Willpower may not be enough. That’s how strong the pull of these devices can be. You will possibly have to figure out how to disable the wifi, learn how to be comfortable leaving the phone at home when you go out, or invest in some stupid lockbox to keep you away from the screen. You might have to regress to a dumb phone. Developers and advertisers won’t let you go without a fight.
And it isn’t your fault. But, as they say, it’s your problem.
So go easy on yourself, but get out there and remember the things you’ve lost. Fight for every single one. Help others with their fights, too. Start clubs, have meetings, be the one who schedules activities and plans outings. Life is too short not to create, to play, to move, to observe, and to enjoy all the tangible things this crazy world has to offer. Don’t get to the end only to wonder what happened to all those things you used to love. Remember them now, and then get out there and embrace them.
