TBT To The Good Ole Days | Rome

I looked around the table at my friends and smiled. Everyone was talking to everyone. No one had a cell phone out and no one cared to. We were simply in the moment with each other.

While skyping a friend back home, he told me that he realized what he wanted to do with his life. He said "I want to have people talking to each other again. I want to cut everything else out and get us back to before we were addicted to our cell phones." He knew this task would seemingly be impossible. But no one would have believed cell phones could be possible either.

In Italy I have two cell phones. I have my iPhone which is great for taking pictures and communicating when in WiFi. I have another phone, a ghetto phone. This cell phone was probably the first one ever invented and cost around $1. I now remember why texting language was invented because it takes ten minutes just to type "Where are you now?" But I love that phone. It allows me to call my friends here and text them only when necessary. It is really all I need.

Traveling with new friends 

Don't get me wrong, I'm just as addicted to my "next hit" as my friend said. Whether that's social media, texts, or what have you, I love it all. I love looking things up on the Internet and finding instant answers. But more than my love for my phone, I have a love for people.

I believe strongly that when you're with a person you should be fully with them. That means that if someone is in front of me, I should be focusing on them rather than someone on my phone. I need to get back to enjoying life instead of always trying to capture it and write about it at that very moment. Everyday I try to take a moment and enjoy something whether that's a church, ruins, or my gelato without worrying about showing it off through my phone later. Life passes with or without your phone and I don't want to miss what happened when I was looking at a screen.

My favorite piece of art I've seen in a church

I love my phone. I love social media. I love texting, especially my friends so far away. But I think it's time we took it back a few years before we were addicted. Let's take it back to when we lived life fully present with others. Let's put the phones down and finally look up.

So incredibly happy to be eating this donut