I get that I am in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle but…where the hell is the wifi?

Sitting back in my chair I wondered what the hell I was going to do. I didn’t have cell service and my wifi was not cooperating. Talking to my friends and family was going to be tricky and forget about being able to access social media.

Immediately aggravated that I wouldn’t be able to chronicle my backpacking journey the way that I had wanted to on my Instagram, I decided to let it go and take it as a sign to put down my phone and live in the moment.

Thirty days later, I landed back in the USA and went to turn my phone off of airplane mode for the first time. An emotion I never thought I would feel happened, I was genuinely unhappy.

What had changed?

In those thirty days of in and out wifi, I had learned the reality of cell phones and social media.

Neither were necessary to my happiness (in fact, I was MUCH happier without either).

Without them I learned what it meant to be present for a long period of time (not just a fifteen minute morning meditation).

I actually did not want to document my every move on social media (it was even cooler to keep those experiences for myself).

As my phone came back to life and my cell service connected, my heart dropped. I immediately realized that my old habits would come right back. I was certain that I’d become addicted to my Instagram feed again, that I’d scroll mindlessly through Facebook and my head would start to refill with gunk.

Sure enough, I did exactly that. My off time is spent on social media reading things that don’t help me grow, learn or become any better than I was yesterday. If anything, I spend most of my day reading pointless memes and statuses that bring absolutely no light into my life.

It is time to go back on my brain diet.

I call this the diet of life experiences.

This brain diet is the equivalent of eating a cookie that is really, really delicious and also insanely good for you (imagine it has magic green powers that provide you with every nutrient and vitamin you need).

When you’re eating it you just want more and more. You don’t want to stop because it’s so delicious and satisfying that you never want it to end. This cookie genuinely makes your heart happy and because it’s so healthy for you it’s always helping you become better. It’s cleansing you of all the built up gunk inside of you and it’s refilling that space with the vitamins and nutrients that your body is craving.

This is what happens when you put your phone down and shut off. You don’t step out of the real world by putting your phone down, you step into it.

Your mentality changes. Your phone isn’t your priority-you are your priority. What you see with your eyes, feel with your heart, experience with your body all becomes your number one focus.

This is the one of the parts of travel that changes people and it’s also the part of travel that can be experienced right here and right now.

I’m going back to Costa Rican jungle mode and deciding that my life is better spent when I am present with my loved ones and with myself.

Who wants to join?