There’s a white elephant in the room with me at all times.

Well, more like a white device. It’s my iPhone and I am thoroughly, completely and admittedly totally addicted to it. I reach for it in the morning instead of my wife. I hold it close to me at night just before I go to sleep instead of my wife. (Oh yeah, you get the real me! Up close and sometimes a little too personal…) In fact, in any given moment that I’m not task­mastering and swiping away at my iPhone beneath my thumbs…I have my iPad in its place. Scrolling, tapping, pinching, repeat. All day, all night…everywhere, around everyone.

Both of these iDevices are as much problem for me as they are solutions. I should call them iVices. With them, I’m rarely fully present in the moment. I get easily distracted. AND MY FREAKING WRISTS HURT! Thus I’ve decided that this year for the 40 days of Lent, they’ve gotta go.

I’m not Catholic. I’m a very open­minded non­fundamentalist Christian if I bear any religious label at all. I love me some Jesus. However I am a firm believer in the benefits of occasional fasting, and have used it as a tool to great impact many times in my adult life. I have been participating in a fast during Lent since 2008, and each has been largely successful and valuable. Well, except for last year when I failed miserably at fasting from sleeping in, the snooze button and naps. Bygones…

There’s not many additional vices in my life that I could give up in the “spirit of Lent”­­–true sacrifices–­­without repeating something I’ve already done. I enjoy new challenges as part of the fun of personal development and growth. So this year, as I thought about it I found myself zeroing in where I knew it would hurt…and help.

Now I’m taking it a step further in the commitment to let the world know. I’m doing so early because preparing for this fast requires a good deal of advance preparation. Just because I won’t be using these devices doesn’t mean I can or will give up the functionality these devices provide for me. I’m putting plan in place that transitions the essential purposes these devices serve elsewhere. For starters, I’m borrowing a plain old flip phone from my mom for phone calls and messages. My MacBook Pro will become my sole internet access source, rather than a clunky charger for my iDevices. Calendar, tasks and notes will return to paper. Fun will be found and had in the non­-app real life happening around me. I even dug out our digital camera. God help me in figuring out how to navigate without a blue dot and a disembodied voice telling me where to go. This…should be interesting!

Stay tuned wherever you follow me, as I will share this experience as I go along. I know am not the only one with this problem, which means this is an opportunity for me to do another thing I’m addicted to: helping others.

How about you? Are you giving up something for Lent? Or is there just something you could use less of, or none of in your life? What’s your plan to address it? I’d love to know­­and help. Reply to this email, post on the Facebook page, or tweet me @CoachKishaLynn, #iDevicefast

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