About six weeks ago I deleted the app I had for browsing my email and disabled all but one infrequently used account. Suddenly, my mobile went from gleefully checking eight accounts to none. I’m becoming a better person because of it.

The decision was impulsive. I looked at my phone one afternoon and was simply tired of the constant interruptions into my thoughts and days. My life had boundaries that were simply being overrun by my own fidgeting. I had tried before to minimize the hassle by unsubscribing from lists and deleting email notification preferences. But the slow and steady stream continued. This time the change would be permanent.

The Fast

Although it wasn’t the first time I had attempted this fast, this has been the first time I’ve stuck to it. Over the last few years, I’ve discovered I am (or have become) a naturally anxious person. I describe the feeling like being a cord that is constantly plucked and strumming. I’ve learned to manage it and have had to make several life decisions (including leaving the corporate practice of law) to keep my anxiety at baseline levels. Every time a new email appeared, lately, I was noticing my mind racing, even if the task be as menial as saying “ok.” This interruption and anxiety didn’t feel right.

Unfortunately, my current fast has not been a therapeutic as I hoped. Looking for a bit of mental relief, especially in the mornings and evenings, when I am away from my computer, I also expected to find a bit more spiritual renewal. By placing a limit on my work relationships I thought the remaining space would naturally be filled by a renewed prayer life. That I have not found.

This lack of calming solitude has been overwhelmed by the solicitudes of today’s world. I deleted my email because the messages I received were no longer short notes connecting me with another person, like an unexpected postcard or friendly letter. My inbox had become my “to-do list” open to the world to fill in. With my primary job, personal obligations, and various gigs (four at last count), many others have a blank check on how I spend my time in service to them. While deleting my email eliminated the immediacy of their claim on my time and spiritual reserves, it does not alter the fundamental conundrum of this situation which isn’t right.

Christians should only allow others to freely claim our time and energy only within the context of a committed fellowship, and then only a few committed relationships. The ordinary example would be marriage, where between husband and wife, the marital trust exists to allow a free but respectful claim, on each other’s affections and time. When my spouse crosses that boundary (and surely, she would never even if I might on occasion), we can discuss that transgression between us and find our love renewed in forgiveness and resolve. Our commitment to a life together has the mechanism for rectification and renewal.

No Such Limits

Market relationships know no such limits, nor offer any such mechanism for rectification and renewal. The one who asks has, as a result of an a priori agreement, a claim on my time. If I decline or delay, perhaps my requestor won’t realize or know he crossed a line, even if that line is the basic limit of expediency. Instead, the efficiency of an email turns an ordinary task into an immediate claim. Who doesn’t feel the need to stop everything to respond now before it’s too late, even if it means typing in the most awkward of locations and moments? (I’ll let your imagination remind you of the weird places you write emails from!)

While I have certainly contracted my skills and talents to others, the call on my duty should be limited by norms and patterns of work that conform to more than just the business’s need for immediate attention. We used to speak of a “9 to 5” culture, which delineated limits. Problems left unsolved one day would be worked on the next. Except for emergencies, this followed the human sense that outside activities should be limited, that there is a time and a season for everything. Email breaks all those barriers no matter where you are.

Of course this rule isn’t absolute. In a service industry a client (or potential client) might need a quick yes or no response or to take his business to someone else. No position is absolute. Even though we are commanded to rest on Sunday, firehouses, police stations, drugstores, and hospitals must be open. All rules are understood within a context. It is the context of limits that I have wanted to rediscover.  

In deleting my email from my phone, the most I’ve achieved is some additional quiet and the subtle realization that cultural and market norms are not so easily escaped. We conform and we adapt because no one of us can change the game. But the rules need reform. It’s not right that all our relationships seem to operate under the same conditions.

What’s more, it seems inappropriate for Christians to conduct their affairs with the world in a manner that is the same as among pagans. The supernatural insights of our life together should inform the the ordinary course of our daily affairs. Or else we risk putting faith and reason in tension with one another.

None of this will solve my own anxieties. But I’ve learned to listen to my concerns rather than bury them. I also know that alone I am not able to fully understand the contours of these limits. I want others to join me so we can share our experiences and together discover (or rediscover) the natural limits to our own affairs and develop meaningful relationships with one another, thanks to this commitment.

Mattias A. Caro is the Executive Editor of Ethika Politika.