Early followers of the itinerant Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, took on the lifestyle and practices of their teacher through what became known as a Rule of Life. A set of formative practices relating to their days, careers, and relationships that sought to unify body, mind, and heart under the instruction of his (and choice other’s) ideals.
This may seem archaic and stifling to you, but here’s the truth:
You already have a Rule of Life.
Whether you are aware of it or not, you live by a unique set of rhythms. Your time is always divided into buckets (hap-hazardously or intentionally): work, relationships, meals, play. The ways you spend your time may ebb and flow from week to week, but, for the most part, your life follows a set of programmed rituals.
The questions you should be asking are:
…from where did I receive these rhythms and routines?
…are these habits in line with my values?
…can I change my ways?
Technology tries incredibly hard to avoid answers to the first and ensure the last two are ‘no.’ Over the course of just a few decades, without thinking, we have reoriented the structure of our lives to accommodate and encourage the needs of technology.
The home was once centered around a fireplace or hearth. Couches didn’t face a black screen and make room for chords and speakers connecting our senses to virtual entertainment. Our pockets weren’t overstuffed with a too-large device that begged our attention with sound and vibrations. Our desks and bookshelves housed time-tested wisdom, writing and reading tools, and debris from the life of intellectual explorers.
Our environment engineers the trajectory of our life and a technologically engineered environment has nefarious ends. Techno-optimists will laud the efficiency and connectedness of devices but where is the proof? Our society is closer to war and spiritual collapse with each year since social media and smartphone’s took the main-stage. Work hours have not decreased as was once predicted and a malaise remains over our general satisfaction with the life-hours we spend grinding away at tasks. Our great-grandparents would expect our happiness levels to be through the roof, but the mental health crisis tells a different story. Have we created an environment perfect for technology but harmful to humanity?
What can we do but reclaim our spaces, reframe our time, and rewrite our habits? Can we pen a new way of life to match our striving for those values that matter most to us? Will we be formed under the instruction and rule of technological or higher powers in the end?
