I see him almost every day. He walks his dog through the neighborhood—leash wrapped around his waist, hoodie pulled up regardless of the temperature, headphones clamped over the fabric, head bowed toward the glowing screen in his hands. The dog trots along, doing what dogs do, while its owner exists somewhere else entirely. I've greeted him dozens of times, with a wave, nod, or a simple "good morning." He has never once acknowledged me. Not with words, not with a glance, not with the slightest lift of his head. I'm not sure he even knows I exist.
At first, I found it rude, then puzzling, but now I find it haunting.
What is so fascinating about that phone that he has completely shut out the world around him? What could possibly be more compelling than the morning light filtering through the trees, the sound of birds waking up, the simple presence of another human being offering a moment of connection? I don't know what he's watching. Maybe it's the news, a sitcom, or maybe it's one of those “reality” shows that have nothing to do with the reality of actual life. But whatever it is, it has captured him so completely that he's stopped participating in the world he's physically walking through. Is the real world so boring that he sees no value in engaging with it? Or is the real world so demanding that escape feels necessary?
I wonder when we became such master escape artists. When did the warm blanket of digital pretend to become more appealing than the sometimes cold reality of genuine presence? When did someone else's manufactured life become a stronger draw than living our own? But before I go too far down the road of judgment, I have to stop and examine myself. Because if I'm honest with myself, I recognize something familiar in that man. I've been him. Maybe not with the hoodie and the dog leash, but I've been the person so absorbed in a screen that I missed the life happening right in front of me. I've scrolled through feeds while my family sat in the same room. I've checked notifications during conversations that deserved my full attention. I've reached for my phone the moment silence arrived, as if stillness were something to be avoided rather than embraced.
The trap of distraction is a trap of misdirection and deceit, and it doesn't announce itself. It creeps in slowly, one small choice at a time, until we find ourselves somewhere we never intended to be. We don't decide to check out of our own lives. We drift there, pulled by currents we barely notice. And the drift is dangerous, not because screens are inherently evil, but because time without intentionality leads us down paths we don't even realize we're on. We look up one day and wonder how we got so far from the life we meant to live. The relationships we meant to nurture. The presence we meant to offer.
I think about that man and his dog, and I wonder what he's missing. The way the light changes in the early morning. The neighbors who might become friends. The small, unremarkable moments that somehow become the texture of a life well-lived. But more than that, I think about what I'm missing when I choose the screen over the scene right in front of me. This isn't about condemnation, rather it's about invitation. An invitation to notice, to look up, and to be present in the life we've actually been given rather than perpetually escaping into lives we haven't.
The man with the phone will walk by again tomorrow. He probably won't see me. But maybe tomorrow, I'll put my own phone down a little more intentionally. Maybe I'll practice being the kind of person who's actually here and fully present in this one unrepeatable day. Maybe that's where it starts. Not with fixing anyone else, but with asking ourselves a simple question:
What masks am I wearing to avoid the life right in front of me?
This is the first article in the series "Leading a Distracted Life" exploring distraction, authenticity, and the real work of discipleship.
