The Nuclear Option of Do Not Disturb

My lock screen goes dark grey. The widgets disappear. On my wrist, the watch face strips down to just the time, white on black, nothing else. I’d gone full nuclear. Do Not Disturb, no exceptions. And almost immediately, I felt something shift.

Yesterday morning felt like a time when I was due for a much-needed brain reset. I was short on sleep from the night before, as I had thoughts racing in my head. After trying meditation, watching TV, and even changing sleeping spots, I still couldn’t get to sleep. It took one of my patented brain dumps onto paper to quiet my mind to finally get to sleep. As a result, I was working on just over 4 hours of sleep going into the day.

Part of dealing with feelings of loneliness and exclusion is that I can be prone to laying unwarranted expectations on people. I reach out, get declined or canceled out on because of life, and I start keeping score, and this is where resentment starts creeping in, fair or not. This is a toxic pattern I’m looking to get past. It’s not fair to others, nor is it to myself. Life is life and sometimes you just need to let it breathe.

I know I need to focus more on myself and learning to find the peace in being alone. I know I need to work out more, do the things I love without any compromise, and ultimately rediscover my own worth. That’s a lot, I know. I already have a fairly quiet “morning mode” on my phone, which severely limits what notifies me and who can access me. But there’s still access. So, I put the thing in “do not disturb”.

That’s when I felt something powerful. On one hand, I was cutting off anyone from getting to me. No inbound texts, no notifications from apps, nothing. But there’s a flip side to this. Sure, I can still text someone. But I wouldn’t know right away if they reached back, which lessens the reward system of reaching out. So, instead, I didn’t reach out at all. I took in the solitude and I did things for myself. I made breakfast, I took a walk, and eventually took a nap to catch up on some sleep.

So, not only was I closing the door from anyone invading my space, I was blocked from the urge to invade anyone’s space as well. The door was closed on both ends. I’m finding there are things I grew up with that I found uncomfortable due to the boredom that came with it, such as the lack of constant pulls of notifications from our devices. You knew there was a decent chance you’d call someone and they wouldn’t pick up. Your phone wasn’t attached to your hip at all times, so you didn’t know if anyone called until you got home. I can find peace in those things now, as I don’t always want constant access. What felt like a curse before now feels like a blessing.

This isn’t accidental. My Do Not Disturb mode is a deliberately constructed environment. Minimal color, no widgets pulling my eye toward anything, nothing queuing up for my attention. Every device follows the same logic. The watch face on my Apple Watch drops to just the time. Getting to anything beyond that requires enough friction to make it feel not worth it. That’s the point. The setup becomes the mindset.

After getting lunch yesterday, I finally came out of hiding as I had to start thinking about going in for my closing shift last night. At this point, I need to leave myself open in case anyone needed anything ahead of me going in. But I still felt a point of control as I was deciding to do this.

Had this been an off day, there’s a good chance I would have kept this going longer. It would have given me the chance to dig into the albums I’ve been meaning to listen to. Or I could explore some of the writing topics I have in my mind. Or I could have binge-watched a TV show I’ve wanted to catch up on. Things I distract myself from constantly. Lessening the distractions opens the door to these kinds of things. I’m actually doing it right now.

It allows me to sit and think. To plot my next move. To know where I’m going before I leave. It allows me to take a breath when I need to. To act on what I need to act on. Or maybe it just allows me to look out my sliding glass door, and enjoy the peace of the morning, to feel the cool air, and know I can live in that moment. Little resets like this are necessary.