Missing Out

My finger swipes back and forth over the smooth screen of my new smartphone. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes there are up and down motions as well. But not often. Every fifteen minutes or so there is a pause in the movement, a few frantic taps on the screen, and then a sigh of resignation accompanies the phone's shutting down. I tap my fingers against my leg. Develop a nervous twitch. Breathe heavily and turn around the room, looking for someone I know. I resolve to keep my phone off, but a minute later I convince myself that I want to know the time and turn my phone on again. It is mere seconds until this cycle starts over. 

I'm not addicted to my phone....

Not really. I could quit when I like. I don't need to play these games. I don't want to play these games. But there's something so satisfying about winning a particularly hard level, or accomplishing a difficult goal. Something so temporal and fleeting, but inducing a mental sweet tooth all the same. This sugar high leaves me wanting more, and though I know that I am just filling myself up with mental garbage that isn't going to sustain me, I don't know where else to go. 

There are so many words for addiction to make it feel less loathsome: Love, infatuation, and dedication are a few I can think of off the top of my head. There are also a few that make addiction sound quite as bad as the actual word: obsession, mania, and passion are some that come to mind. But perhaps the one that hits me in the middle of my sugar-filled-quest across a Candy land board is ENSLAVEMENT. 

Wow now. I may not be able to stop myself from playing this game, but I am not bound to it with iron, and I am definitely not a slave to my addictions...

Oh. 

Addiction: The fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity.

Addicted: Physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance, and unable to stop taking it without incurring adverse effects.

Enslavement: The action of making someone a slave; subjugation.

Slave:

• A person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.
• A person who works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation.
• A person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something.

Sadly, all of these definitions describe exactly what I experience every day in regards to the tons of apps that I put on to my phone. The one that is most embarrassing to talk about is a game that everyone plays, but no one admits to playing. Well, I'll come out and say it; I was addicted to this game for the last month or so.

Candy Crush Saga. 

There is nothing particularly exciting about this game. You swipe the candies over and up to make rows of three or more, and they disappear from the board. Sometimes your goals are to rack up certain amounts of points. Sometimes they tell you to clear the board of certain pieces. Sometimes you are racing against a clock to make a certain number of special candies. Regardless of the challenges, there is nothing about this game that is particularly exciting. 

Until they tell you that you are out of lives. 

That's where the rubber meets the road. It's one thing to mindlessly play the game until you pass all the levels. But it's quite another to be mindlessly playing, and then be forced to quit because you have to wait another half-an-hour for a life. This absence of lives makes us feel like the chances we have in this game are precious. Since they are limited, there must be something special about them. We must make them last as long as possible. We must keep coming back to beat this level, and depending on how many times you come back and fail determines how much success you feel when you finally pass the level. 

I would always feel such excitement when I passed a level that had taken me a few days. I would take pride in the fact that I had finally beaten a level that I thought was impossible. It's hard to get into a winning streak when you only have five lives, and so stumbling on one is one of the most thrilling aspects of the game. 

I didn't realize that I was addicted until I started seeing candy when I closed my eyes. All I could ever see was my phone screen; and imagine how awesome it would feel to finish the next level. But when the next level came and went, I could only think of the level after that, and how great it would be to pass all of them. There was never any substantial happiness left by accomplishing the goals in the levels. There was always this hunger for more levels and the excitement that they would bring. 

I was never satisfied. But I didn't know where to go to feel full. So, I kept going back for more, not realizing that this was just making me addicted to a mindless game that I both loved and hated. I didn’t stop playing until I tried closing my eyes for a meditation and realized that I couldn’t focus on God because all I saw were neon-colored candies floating in my vision. I couldn't focus on the Lord of all Creation because I was too into a game that I wasn't even playing at that exact time. 

I stopped for a moment to try and think about it. Normally when I am having a hard time with something in my prayer time, I think about the crucifixion, and what it would have been like to be there. Normally this helps ground me, and for me to realize the love that the Father has for us. Today, what I thought about made me feel ashamed. I realized that if Jesus died today, I would have been too busy to look up and realize that He was dying. The reason for his death would have eluded me, because I would have been too busy burying my nose in my game. I would have let my Lord die without my acknowledgement. I would have missed the greatest event in history because of my personal slavery to my phone.

I would have been blinded to Jesus dying on the cross. I wouldn’t have noticed Jesus rising from the dead. I wouldn’t have noticed the Lord that I say I follow, was right in front of me. Which made me start thinking:

What else have I missed?