I have this friend – well, rather colleague – and that person has this weird habit of not saving, and even deleting, most of the things from her phone. And this is such absurd behavior – even for me, who knows how important not storing things (physical, but also virtual) can be to live a mindful life. Why? Let me show you.
Meet Ula. Should I change her name for the purpose of this post? Probably I should, but I won’t. So, Ula’s my colleague. She works at one of the companies I work with and she’s of retirement age, so she’s much older than I am – well, she has a daughter who is almost my age. When I met her for the first time, something like 6 or 7 years ago, I immediately thought:
Well, she’s definitely a bitch, she has to be. She looks like a typical stubborn, malicious, mean person. Look out for her Greg!
Yes, this was actually my first thought. And I have to say – I am usually right when judging people, I just have good intuition about them. Ok, to be fair, this happens because usually I don’t judge people as bad persons – hmm, actually I never do this. Because for me there are no bad people, there are people with problems they can’t fix, or that they’re trying to fix in a bad way, and this is why those people’s behavior is… well, I don’t actually like to say “bad”, so maybe “difficult”? When you look at someone and you don’t try to judge if this person is good or bad, but instead think: what is her/his story?, then you have the opportunity to understand their behavior, in many cases this hard-to-understand behavior. And there are many difficult persons like that in my life. I don’t want to have anything in common with them, I avoid them completely, but I know (I KNOW) those people are not bad, they just have problems, they have their story.
It was so different with Ula. When I first saw her, I thought exactly what I wrote earlier: “an old bitch”. And I have to admit: after some time, after getting to know her a little, I was very ashamed of those thoughts. It was probably the biggest mistake of judging someone in my life. She’s such an interesting person, and – like everyone else – with her own life problems. But actually my mistake showed me something interesting. Usually (or rather never) I don’t judge people as bad persons, and this time I did, so exactly… why did this happen? Why did this red light come on in my head immediately after meeting her? I think I know why, and it makes sense to me now. But later on that.
I like Ula, and – I actually don’t know why – she also likes me, more than I could expect. Some people say there’s a weird connection between us. I don’t know if it’s true, but I think I understand her right now. And I have to say, she’s not this stubborn, malicious, mean person like I thought at the beginning, especially when it comes to her people – you know, her colleagues, friends, people she knows and likes. Yes, she’s just very closed to new ones. And I have to admit, the first part of my judgment of Ula (stubborn, malicious, mean bitch) was very, very wrong, but the second part (look out for her Greg!) was actually right.
When you first meet her, you probably won’t notice anything special. A typical person, with a typical life, problems, solutions, dreams, needs. She’s very shaped by society. Ula doesn’t like her job much, likes to go on vacation every few months, likes eating her unhealthy lunch, going for walks, gossiping with colleagues at work. Nothing special, a very ordinary person you would say. But an attentive observer will notice some little weirdness in her behavior.
Ula’s not a minimalist, definitely not, however she understands why living this kind of life is so much easier, calmer. She admires the idea behind minimalism, but has no strength to try living like this. Although, I know she would love this.
You have to know one thing about Ula. I wrote she’s typical, but actually she isn’t. In her every habit, in things she does, there is always something strange – these weird little things, moments, symptoms, that can shock many people. And I’m not the only one who noticed that. I even heard that she has a mild form of Asperger’s syndrome. Is that true? I don’t know, don’t even care – we all have something – but those small things she has are so interesting to me. I treat myself as a very open person, it’s actually hard to surprise me with any kind of behavior, but she did it a few times. And I learned a lot from this. So, when you meet Ula, you see a totally normal person – we’re all normal at first, right? But I will now tell you about Ula’s phone, about her approach to it, and you’ll see for yourself – it’s… weird? Unique? Brilliant? Or just stupid? You will be able to decide for yourself.
Like I wrote, Ula’s not the youngest person, she’s around 60 years old, and uses her phone mainly to communicate with people – her husband, daughter and other people. She has a phone with Android onboard. She recently switched from an older Xiaomi model to, I think, another Xiaomi one, or maybe it’s Samsung? Well, I don’t remember, but it doesn’t really matter. Her weirdness is not connected to her phone’s brand, she would probably be doing the same stuff on an iPhone.
Before I write about the weirdest stuff, I think I should tell you more about her usage of the phone. She uses it, like I wrote, mainly to communicate with her loved ones, but also with other people. When I spend a day with her – I mean at the company she works in – her phone rings something like every 1–2 hours. Is it much? I think it is. She probably answers more calls than me. And there’s also Messenger – she spends some time there too. So, it’s probably more than a normal user at her age – I think. And now, let’s start with the weirdness. Well, when Ula goes on vacation, she can easily leave her phone at home. For example for a week. Yes guys! It is possible! She relies then only on her husband’s phone. It’s a healthy and normal thing, you say? Maybe, but wait, it’s only the beginning.
So, her approach gets even weirder. Because Ula – besides being able to leave her phone at home for a week – doesn’t like having stuff on her phone. And here you can say: ok, great, not having many apps on a phone is actually healthy. No. When I write “stuff”, I mean other things than apps. Well, she doesn’t use many apps, so she doesn’t install them. But what about… contacts? She’s constantly cleaning her phone from unused contacts. Well, not only unused! She doesn’t like storing contacts even for people she knows and calls. And you have to understand this – it’s not like she doesn’t know how to use this feature, or doesn’t see the benefits of having a whole address book on her phone. No, it’s not like that. She just doesn’t like having too many contacts there. And she constantly has this problem, like: oh no, I don’t remember this number I want to use right now. You know how long it took her to put my number into her phone? Several years. And she calls me or writes to me one or two times a week with some work stuff. And the funny thing is that my number went into her address book not because it is useful, not because she has to call me every week or two, but just because she likes me. Yeah, I think there is something Japanese in that – you know how they treat business cards or credit cards? And it’s not only with contacts, she doesn’t like storing notes, messages or photos on her phone. Well, ok, not using the notes app is maybe normal for many people, but deleting most of the messages she receives? Even from people she knows, likes, loves? It’s… weird? Or smart?
When I first heard about her approach to phones, I was shocked. There was only one question in my head: why? When I asked her that question, she didn’t know the exact answer, but I could feel from her words that somewhere there was an answer like: I just don’t want to have those things that need to be managed, I want to have a clear head because of this, be free from that digital stuff. And this is wow for me. Like eye-opening. So after some time, I started asking myself a totally different question: why not?? Because this is not weird. Well, ok, it is, but it’s totally my kind of weirdness. Actually it is brilliant. It’s like minimalism at its best. It really is.
So many times I was thinking about getting rid of my phone, reducing my usage of it, adding system limitations to get a healthier relationship with this device, and here I have this brilliant idea. And it came from a person who is far from being a minimalist. Or at least that’s what she says about herself. But when it’s about phones, she’s a bigger minimalist than me.
Yeah, I’ve learned a lot from this. And I keep thinking about her approach. How to have something similar in my life? Recently I nominated some apps (33) to be deleted from my iPhone. And you know what? It’s like the tip of an iceberg. This shy step toward normalization. I transformed the way I use my phone when I’m at home – I practically don’t use it anymore. But it’s also not enough for me. My journey of healing my relationship with my phone has already begun, but it’s such a long way to go. I know I will think many times about Ula’s approach. And maybe I will try to live like her. It’s a little scary for me to delete too many things, but… maybe it’s worth taking this risk and trying this experiment?