In an age where digital devices dominate our time, many of us have slowly slipped into the habit of numbing ourselves with screens.

Whether it’s scrolling through social media, watching videos, or playing games, we’ve allowed technology to fill every free moment.

It’s as if we’re afraid of empty time, of facing our own thoughts.
And so, we turn to entertainment and distraction simply to get through the day.

What’s happening, though, is far more significant than we might realize.

From the earliest stages of life, children are often given a screen to occupy their attention. Instead of learning to deal with boredom, they learn to escape it.

Traditionally, we filled our downtime with human interactions, reading, imagination, writing, and music—activities that tapped into our creativity and helped us engage deeply with ourselves and others. But now, by and large, screens have replaced those things. This digital shift is taking us further from our ideas, distancing us from our creativity and reducing our capacity for introspection.

It’s all too easy to miss this until we realize how much we’ve lost. Personally, I’ve found that my creativity feels dulled, my mental “motor” cooler than it once was.

Moments I once dreamed of having to think, create, and imagine are often absorbed by the very devices that I hoped would be tools rather than time-sinks. I look back on those wasted moments with regret, wishing I’d used them more wisely.

It seems clear that we need a kind of “cleansing” from our digital attachments. It’s time to reconnect with ourselves, with each other, and with the empty spaces in our lives. Those empty spaces—moments of quiet or boredom—are not obstacles to be avoided but opportunities to be embraced. They are essential for nurturing creativity and encouraging reflection.

In these moments, our ideas, thoughts, and dreams can surface and be nurtured, rather than lost to the pull of a screen.

One quote that resonates deeply is the idea that the richest place in the world is the graveyard—not because of material wealth, but because of the unrealized dreams and unmanifested ideas that were never shared with the world.

This “purgatory” of unfulfilled potential is something I hope to avoid, and I am reminded of how precious it is to live fully, to create, and to express.

Jazzy Jeff once said,

“I want to die empty.”

That simple statement drives home a powerful truth: we should aim to realize our dreams and share our gifts so that we leave this world with nothing left unexpressed.

The effort, love, patience, and challenges that have shaped me are all part of who I am, and I want to honor that by living fully. To do this, I need to break free from the habits that numb my creativity, embrace the discomfort of boredom, and reconnect with the deep well of ideas within me.

I want to look back knowing I didn’t leave anything unrealized, that I honored my creativity, and that I left this world without holding anything back.