Sabbatical

Imagine a bespectacled doctor checking his in-box on the cell phone along the hospital corridor during peak hour. With his eyes glued to the screen and fingers busy on the telephone keypad, he became inordinately distracted when he almost bumped into a gurney. And it's actually even worse than that. Those email replies in the middle of busy traffic are often regretted.

Obviously I am one of those addicted to checking emails during a lunch conversation, attending a meeting, commuting, and even between seeing patients in an outpatient clinic. Average phone checking per day is more than two hundred times a day for an average adult. That's right. You read that correctly. More than two hundred times. Perhaps more so for me after my recent change in job description. I could have been honked more than hundred times if our hospital gurney is equipped with a horn.

All that said, I have made efforts to help myself unplugged now and then. Running is one of the perfect ways to do so. Running is a beautiful - and beautifully simple - way of taking Internet Sabbath or digital detox. Simply lace up a pair of shoes and my instincts will kick in, telling me not to check the phone lest running into holes, lampposts, trees, or even dog poo.