YONO - You only need one: Take time with yourself

So last week I couldn’t figure out why I only forgot my phone at home on Wednesdays. Well, it didn’t happen this Wednesday so it must have been a weird two-week thing that I was going through. Weirder things have happened - like the wave of deaths of women and girls that have dominated the news the past few days.

What did happen this week though (on Thursday) is a power blackout when my phone’s battery was at 30 per cent. By morning, the phone had gone off and I had to ride to work when I was offline.

I must confess that on the two Wednesdays I forgot my phone at home and on this particular Thursday, I appreciated the break from technology. (Not in the bus though. I get motion sickness when I use my phone. Anyone else?)

On any given day, you will wake up to the sound of voices or music from your radio alarm clock. You’ll go to take a wee in your bathroom and glance briefly into the living room to find that your housemate or family member has already turned on the TV and there are more of those voices.

Then you’ll walk back into your room just to hear the beep on your phone…there’s a WhatsApp message waiting for you to read…more voices a group of workmates or chama mates or relatives squabbling over one thing or another.

When you walk out of your door and head to work, the newspaper vendor will point at the headline and mouth the words through the matatu window. You think, “That looks interesting” and try to go on social media to see what Kenyans are saying about it. But you have no internet bundles left. You squandered them all last night uploading selfies to your Facebook wall.

At work, as you juggle between e-mail and the documents due by the end of the day, you are already exhausted by the voices that have been calling out to you since morning. It’s the age of media. You can’t escape it. It is everywhere.

Once in a while, take some time to listen to your own voice. What is it saying?