In one of my last posts before leaving on my trip abroad, I shared with you my goal of abstaining from email.  I am delighted to report that I was successful!  Now it’s your turn!

For three glorious weeks I neither wrote an email nor looked at an email.  I will admit that for the first week or so I still went online a few times, mainly to keep up-to-date on my favorite sports teams.  For the second two weeks, though, I spent the least amount of time that I ever have sitting in front of a computer.

The verdict- it was amazingly liberating and cleansing!  For three weeks my entire focus was on the real world, as opposed to the virtual world of computers.  My interactions with people were in person (a novel concept nowadays) and I loved it.  Naturally, since returning I’ve shifted back into checking my email numerous times per day and visiting those same few websites over and over.  However, I am doing my best to abstain from email on the weekends as a compromise, and I even hope to stay away from email after work as well.

Fighting against computers is an almost hopeless battle, but my few weeks away showed me the wonderful world of not staring at a screen for hours each day.  Now I just have to find that elusive middle ground.  Wish me luck!

I will be embarking on a trip abroad very shortly and I have decided that for the duration of my trip I will abstain from email.  My goal is to not check my email even once.  No reading any emails as well as no writing any emails!

This may not seem like such a big deal, but my trip isn’t a short one, and to venture a guess, I would say that for many of us the longest period of time spent without email is at most a couple of days.

Since mentioning this goal to my girlfriend (she is also going to make the same attempt) I have been reflecting on why it is so difficult for us to “get away”.  Are we afraid that we might miss out on news we can’t live without?  That someone might not be able to reach us (OMG)?

The same excuse is usually thrown around as the reason why we have to check our email, texts, or voicemail.  In case of an emergency, we want to be reachable!  Well, I don’t buy that excuse at all.  There are ways of ensuring that in case of a real emergency we are still reachable, and yes I will still be reachable on my trip.  Though you may have to go through my family to find me!

I have traveled abroad fairly extensively and I have always made numerous stops at Internet cafes to check my email.  I know it will be tough, but it’s a challenge that I’m looking forward to.

I am hoping to cleanse myself from staring at a computer all day, checking my email a million times, and visiting the same few websites over and over again.  I will let you know how it goes, but in the meantime I have to check my email!

I went on a weekend trip to visit Uluru, and though at first glance, I was actually disappointed, I quickly became as obsessed with this large rock as any in my own rock collection. Seeing Uluru change colors both during sunset and sunrise was as captivating an experience as any I have ever had. Though I of course recommend this as a destination to anyone having the opportunity to travel to this far away and remote venue, the moral of this story has nothing to do with the location itself, but rather with an experience I had twice during my visit.

It was an experience of silence.

On my first full day at Uluru, I escaped the tourist crowds, and wandered out to a secluded viewing area to see the rock. I found myself utterly alone, and I suddenly felt very, very small and insignificant in comparison to the enormous mass in front of me. To quote from my journal:

“I was the only person there and the silence was powerful. I felt completely at peace with myself and it was one of those few moments that I wished would last forever. Just me, the rock, and silence…”

That same night I was off to the “Sounds of Silence” dinner, recommended to me by an Australian friend. We went off to an area remote of the Ayers Rock Resort (where I was staying) for a dinner by campfire in the surrounding desert. We watched the sunset on Uluru, and after dinner, a fairly corny poem, ending in “now listen to the sounds of silence” was read to us, upon the completion of which, everyone remained startlingly quite for a solid 60 seconds. Though in the company of some of my fellow tourists, I was again in the presence of the rock, in silence.

I am certainly a person who does not like to be in silence, or to be silent myself. This may have been the only time in my life that I found myself surrounded by nothing but nature, both enjoying and reflecting in the silence.

Everywhere we turn and everywhere we go in our lives is usually filled with noise. We wake up in the morning and turn on the TV, and we leave our homes and either turn on the radio in our cars or listen to our iPods. Personally, I will admit that it is a rare moment when I am either not with other people, listening to music or watching TV, or doing anything else other than sitting in silence.

I find it very powerful that those moments at Uluru when I was surrounded by the sounds of silence are still enough at the forefront of my mind that I think about them from time to time. I find it very powerful that in those moments at Uluru, I felt at peace and I felt the silence louder than any song or TV show that I listen to.

Whenever I remember the powerful sounds of silence I was privy to in the middle of Australia, I wish I could return. With our digital cable, our high speed Internet, and our MP3s, it can sometimes seem as if silence only comes to us when we sleep. Every time I think back to Uluru, I think that I need to find the sounds of silence in my own life all over again, and every time this happens, I remember that there is some sporting event on tv, some get-together, or some song that I should be dancing to.

What a shame because I miss the sounds of silence, and I want them back again.

A young Pakistani man bought the house next door to my parents’ house.  His parents came to stay with him for a period of a few months, and during the course of their stay, my mother met with this young man’s mother on several occasions.  They mainly came together for an afternoon tea and a few hours of discussion.

My mother and this Pakistani women developed a friendship and when it came time for her to return to Pakistan with her husband, my mother mentioned that she would be going abroad to Switzerland.  She promised to send her a postcard during her trip.

While she was in Switzerland, my mother did remember to send the postcard and didn’t think anything more or less than when she sent anyone else a postcard from abroad.  A week after returning to the Unites States, she received a call from the Pakistani women.  She had the following simple words to share:

“Thank you so, so, so much.  You made me so happy…”

It took a short while to write and send this postcard, but the effect that it had on another person was immeasurably greater.  It turns out that this Pakistani women’s own mother had died a short time after she returned home, and had been feeling utterly and completely full of despair.  She was able to do exactly what I mentioned towards the end of my last post: she took solace in one of the small details of her life.  She was able to let a simple postcard from a faraway friend, bring her happiness.

I don’t know about you, but this story really moved me, and is a powerful example of how amazing life can be, if we only let it.  This women certainly did- in a time of absolute personal darkness, she was still able to garner happiness from her friend’s greetings.  We can never know what will happen when we follow up on a promise or take a few minutes to do something for someone else.  It just might make all the difference in the world, and for this Pakistani women, it sure did.