Ultimate Luxury

I Used to Live for Notifications; Now I Only Live to Get Radical…or something.

Right before tapping these keys, I did something which brings me great joy. Threw my phone across the room where I can’t see it. Since the thing is almost always on vibrate, I can’t tell if I get notifications. When first sitting down, I knew some logins would require TFA, so reluctantly I brought my phone to the computer desk. But now it is where it mostly is. Somewhere I’m not.

We were having coffee post burpees at my workout group/men’s support cult, and one of the perennial topics came up. This being the ever present addiction of people to their phones. One guy relayed issues he just at his dad’s place on Thanksgiving. Due to health stuff, it will likely be his dad’s last Thanksgiving. All the adult kids traveled from around the world to make it for the holiday. This guy described his horror as he realized that almost everyone was on their phones for much of dinner. 

Many of the guys echoed the concern for how cell phone addiction is sucking our life away, and tried to brainstorm ways to combat it. We discussed strategies like placing all phones in a box before meals, keeping phones in a different room and on silent, etc. All acknowledged our own issues with phones, and agreed it was best to try and get control of our own use before we judge others. 

As with similar topics, I attempted to seem like a normal person (pretending to be normal has been a life-long hobby). Nodded, grumbled, and lamented in the socially acceptable points in the conversations. Because I like these guys, and know the struggle is real. And it serves no one to blurt out how this is yet another aspect of my life which is sooooooo much better because fuck working a full-time job. 

The Before Times

Look, I’m no stranger to phone addiction. I was just super lucky to be burned out on that shit way before it was cool. 

Back in my police days, I was obligated to be tied to my phone. When I first got swore in, they issued me a badge, a gun, and a pager. 

Seriously, a fucking pager. 

This was city level government, and that place barely can make ends meet. The car I patrolled in was a decade old, leaked oil, and the odometer had gone over at least once. The glock they issued me was of similar vintage, and I was the third cop to sign it out. Had the pager until I got on SWAT; making the team was a big deal as we were authorized to opt into this new system which sent all of our dispatches as a text to our personal phones. 

As a new, motivated SWAT guy, I opted in and gave back the pager. Lost the ability to pose as an 80’s era drug dealer, but the dispatch messages hit our phones a good five minutes faster than the old pages. Which was important for two reasons.

1. Money: Many of our SWAT jobs, like serving search warrants or doing vehicle take-downs, required less than half the team. These jobs were filled on a first come, first serve basis. The team leader would send out a text, and whoever responded first got on the job. We did maybe 100-200 of these a year, at all times of the day, with little notice. When I was a new SWAT guy, I wanted on these bad. Volunteering for a job got me out of the comparatively boring normal patrol work, and if I was off duty I’d get overtime. Plus I wanted to get as much experience as possible. The tactical aspect of the job had a steep learning curve, and I wanted up that fucker most quick like. When I learned that one cell phone carrier got our department texts a few minutes quicker, I immediately switched. It worked; for years I ranked the highest on the team for most operations conducted. Looking back, my single-minded dedication clearly led to my burnout. But it sure helped me get good at my job, and definitely shortened my time to FI.
2. Saving lives and shit: The other side of SWAT jobs were the full team call-outs where everyone responded. The overwhelming majority of these involved us standing outside some house or apartment for hours waiting for negotiations to inevitably fail so we could go do our fucking job. But a few would go quick. Usually some hostage situation where things went south from jump. And these were the ones where every second counted. Respond too slowly, and people die. The problem was that you could never tell from the text if the job was going to go for hours or had already gone pear-shaped. What’s this mean? It meant the default was to respond to every full call out like it was the end of the world. Probably wouldn’t be, but no one wants to make that mistake. We did another 100-200 of these a year.

All this means that for 8 years, I’d get 200-400 such texts every year where I would immediately drop whatever I was doing and either call a team leader to get on a volunteer job, or jump in my car and go like hell to yet another call out. Due to staffing this was a 24/7/365 thing. Think I had a few weeks off during my time there, not counting the months of bliss I got away from the cell when I got shot. That was a dreamy respite.

On the plus side, due to our department’s alcohol policy, I essentially became sober for much of my team time. So I guess that was good.

Oh yeah, it’s not like the SWAT texts were the only one I got. The department group texted us on everything from lightning warnings, AMBER alerts, a patrol car seen parked with windows down during a rainstorm, and everything in between. On top of this were all the personal texts. 

If I had to guess, for every notification SWAT related, I’d get maybe 20 that weren’t.

This developed a clear stimulus/response cycle. Phone chimes. Blood pressure spikes. Read text. Either sigh, or kick it into overdrive. Over and over. The phone was never more than arm’s distance away. Working out, shower, cooking, reading, and of course sleeping. Always there. 

Every cop jokes about wanting to throw their badge into a large body of water. Me? I wanted to chuck my phone into some icy abyss. By year five of SWATing, it was impossible to feel my phone vibrate without instantly thinking “fuck”. 

(Onto the times which occured after the before times, but before…uh, now?)

Looking back, this did wonders for keeping me from getting addicted to my phone. When I left the team, I took an administrative position that was rife with politics. Didn’t really care about the politics, and I was close enough to FI that it became obvious any extra overtime opportunities weren’t worth the effort. This meant I cared little about work outside my shift, and therefore cared less about work related notifications; I reveled in the relative freedom from my phone.

For years in the SWAT world, it was potential life or death if I missed a text. Then, in the after-times, when my phone went off, I would ask myself if anyone would die if I didn’t respond. Now that the answer was “no”, I questioned the pull the phone still had on me. Chalked it up to habit and the dopamine addiction which had reached the zeitgeist. Luckily, with the years of mandated phone dependence, I was motivated as all hell to break it. 

So I did, or as much as I could while still working. Kept the phone in a different room. Put all the apps into folders so I’d have to use the search function. Went grayscale for a while. Deleted all the social media apps (check them on the laptop once a day). But mostly, really really really enjoyed the time I spent away from my phone. 

Post work, there was still the illusion of need, but thinking through it put that BS to bed:

• What if something happens to someone I care about? Well, they still have 911, and I’m not on the other end of that chain anymore. It’ll probably work out fine without my me. 

• What if our kids’ school calls me? I check the thing every hour or so while they’re gone, so that should be ok. If it’s super serious, they know where I live. Our local police department here has a thankfully low run load and much better funding than my old city had. They can easily send a black and white by. 

• If some relative bites it, me getting the news a few hours earlier isn’t going to make a difference. 

And that’s about it. As for my part-time job, there are the occasional short notice gigs that come up via group text. I’m totally fine with missing those. Yes, I’m missing out on money. No, I don’t really care. No one is going to die if a friend of mine takes the gig instead of me. 

youSure, I still grab the thing when I leave the house. Nice having traffic info when I do have to drive somewhere. And I like to listen to music or podcasts during long walks, rides, or drives. But every time I grab it, it’s an intentional act. So much so, that I routinely forget the thing at home. Sometimes I just leave it at home. Feels like I’m getting away with something, in a good way.

All this is to circle back to the ultimate luxury that is being mostly retired, and generally not beholden to anyone. It’s a luxury of subtraction; forgoing the convenience that we all used to praise, but now also despise. It’s one I can’t really talk about in real life, because I sound like an entitled asshole. Which, I kinda am. 😘

But to you, reader who is possibly pursing FIRE, know that this is one of the most underrated aspect of not having an employer. It’s amazing to see how many things in modern life are built to increase your dependence on that phone, to grab more of your attention. And it feels nearly subversive to be free of that fucker. 

Oh shit, here it comes…

I don’t really like telling people how to run their lives. Sure, I want to, because I think I’m like wicked smart and shit. But then I remember that I’m not, and I don’t know anyone’s full story of why they do stuff. Hell, I’m still figuring out mine. All that was some bullshit disclaimer before I pose you some questions:

Is anybody going to die if you don’t check your phone? If not, why do feel the need to be tethered to it? Does it make the quality of your life better? Have you tried going without it, and seeing how that feels? Do you like movies about gladiators? If you’re post-work, are you still checking that thing like your paycheck depends on it? 

If you didn’t feel great about that line of questions, maybe it’d be a good idea to dig a little deeper and see where it goes. Or maybe you’re already living in the post-phone attachment nirvana. Hope you are, or find it sooner than later. Which seems to be the way I end a lot of these posts, just like this one. 😉