The problem of elsewhere is that it’s not entirely here. We’re lured by external experiences that seem far more enticing than our own. We find ourselves wishing we were there far more than we appreciate being here.
Your smartphone is an infinite portal to elsewhere, an endless invitation to miss out on the life in front of you. We scroll through carefully curated lives and want to be there, doing that. As MIT professor Sherry Turkle wrote about life with smartphones: “We are forever elsewhere.”
Challenge yourself to be here. Allow yourself to settle into the ordinary moments of your own life. Release your curiosity about other people’s adventures and become fully committed to your own. Digital wandering is always accompanied by anxiety and the fear of missing out—a restless hunger that can never be satisfied.
Allow yourself to settle into the ordinary moments of your own life.
Stillness is the art of presence. Calm yourself and embrace your day by embracing the people around you. Be attentive to the conversation happening now, the meal in front of you, the work at hand. As the Psalmist reminds us: “Be still, and know that I am God.” In stillness, we remember that God meets us here—not in the endless scroll of elsewhere, but in the sacred simplicity of this moment.