For the past few days, I’ve been at Bearskin Meadow Camp, where I serve as medical director. My days up here are busy; I spend my time helping kids and families learn to manage type 1 diabetes, teaching, taking care of problems that come up, and listening. I love being in the mountains, and I try to get away and go for a hike or two. My goal is to jump into Glacier Pool every day—I call it my camp shower.
When I look at the statistics of my phone use while at camp, they fall precipitously. My time online, watching YouTube, reading the news—all of it decreases. I do not feel like I have a particularly unhealthy relationship with technology to begin with, but I often do feel that the time I spend watching YouTube or reading the news does not contribute much to my health or happiness. In other words, while I do not feel I’m glued to my screen, I also do not feel the time on my screen adds to my life.
This is not a rant about the addictiveness of the technology we have in our lives, but rather an observation about change. While I’m at camp, I’m not trying to use my phone less. Instead, there are so many other things that I want to do, so many other things that I am pulled toward, that the idea of being on my phone simply comes up less. My screen time falls because I have added more time with others, more time hiking, more time teaching. An almost accidental byproduct is that my time on YouTube falls.
When we identify habits or behaviors in our lives that we do not like and want to change, we often think about what to do in order to decrease them. If we want to spend less time on our devices, we set screen time limits for ourselves. If we want to eat better, we remove unhealthy foods from the house. In other words, we work to subtract the things that we do not like. But many of these strategies seem to have a middling, temporary effect at best, and are often accompanied by a lot of tiring, willful effort that is difficult to maintain. We have to consciously pull ourselves away from our devices or continually remind ourselves not to reach for unhealthy habits.
Perhaps this is because thinking about subtraction– getting rid of habits– is the wrong idea. Rather than focusing on the things we wish to get rid of, maybe we would be better served thinking about the things we want to add.
If life already feels overwhelmingly full, the idea to add yet more may not resonate. In fact, it might feel like an additional burden, an unwelcome injunction that fails to appreciate the reality of modern living. But thinking about adding does not necessarily mean additional obligations, filling every hour, or adding something else to an already full day. Adding might mean a daily time for calm and reflection, more time with a partner, reading a book, watching a movie, making room for friendships that have quietly drifted to the margins, or spending more time outside.
Subtraction—identifying what is not working and then trying to eliminate it—is about resisting something. Addition is about being pulled toward something. When we are trying to change, the pull can be a much more useful organizing principle than the push. We do not stop doomscrolling or eating poorly simply because we become more disciplined. More often, those behaviors fade because something else has become more compelling. Many people who have been in recovery from substance abuse for years feel this viscerally– the pull of a good life is so complete– friends, family, work, hobbies– that the idea of again using drugs seems almost bizarre.
Many of the behaviors we wish were different are not random—they are trying to solve a problem. We check our phones because we are bored, restless, or lonely. We drink because we want relief from sadness or stress. If we simply eliminate those behaviors, we are still left with the very problem we were trying to solve. Giving up TikTok just to feel bored and disconnected is not much of a victory. Spending more time with friends or hiking in the Sierra is different. Rather than focusing on the behavior itself, we are addressing the need that made the behavior appealing in the first place.
Even anxiety might benefit from thinking this way. When we struggle with anxiety, we naturally think about treating the anxiety itself. We practice breathing exercises, challenge anxious thoughts, or work with a therapist. These can all be tremendously helpful, and I would not suggest replacing them. But perhaps there is another question worth asking alongside them: What could I add to my life that would naturally leave less room for anxiety to occupy?
That might mean spending more time with people we love, finding work that feels meaningful, exercising, reconnecting with hobbies that absorb us, or simply making more space for awe, play, beauty, and rest. None of these directly treats anxiety, and they are certainly not cures. But they may make anxiety a smaller part of our lived experience because they fill some of the space that anxiety so readily occupies.
We organize our efforts around fighting the things we do not want: less anxiety, less scrolling, less drinking, less loneliness. We orient ourselves to the problem. Another way to think about change is to organize our lives around the things we do want. More friendship, purpose, beauty, or connection. More moments that remind us why we enjoy being alive. As those things grow, the problems we were trying so hard to eliminate may simply have less room to exist. They are not eliminated as much as they just fade away.
We are naturally drawn to fixing what is wrong– thinking about spending more of our energy building what is right might be a more helpful way to the same outcome. As our lives become richer in friendship, purpose, beauty, play, or reflection, many of the habits and thought patterns that once occupied so much space begin to matter less.
When I'm at Bearskin,my screentime does not fall because I'm trying to be virtuous. Instead, I forget to pick it up. I wonder how many of the changes we hope for begin the same way—not by becoming better at resisting the lives we do not want, but by becoming better at building the lives we do.
Love,
Doc
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