Device free meal time

A couple of days ago I watch a video on YouTube. The creators call themselves as The Grim Network. The videos are fairly simple. Two people converse with each other on various topics. In the videos they often speak about family and spirituality. Inspired from there videos I decided to implement some of these learnings in my daily life to strengthen the family. Here I would like to share some of the easy rituals which will connect us with our family in a better way.

First ritual that I restarted was the 'device free meal time'. I deliberately mentioned restarted because this did not exist in my childhood. When I was a child that time it was completely forbidden to do anything during the meal time except for having the meal. Conversations were allowed but during the meal it was forbidden to watch the television or read a book. In the recent times with sharp increase in various devices, the prior rule had become obsolete. A few months ago I decided to reimplement this rule and it changed my life.

Nowadays while having our lunch and dinner there are no devices with us. The phones stay away from the dining table. The TV to remains switched off. And I must agree that I am loving this no device time a specially during the meals.

I noticed that without the devices when we enjoy our meals we talk about various topics. My parents tell me about their experiences from their youth and childhood. They talk about their fond memories and experiences. They tell me about the games the used to play in their childhood. They tell me the tales of the hardships from their childhood and despite those hardships how their childhood was still enjoyable. Listening to their stories makes me realise how fortunate I am to live a comfortable life.

Dad occasionally gives me a management lesson that is purely based on his experience. A lesson that I would never find in any management books or courses. He explains some of the business cases that he had handled. He walks me through the problem, the solution and the outcome. He provides valuable business and management advices based on his own experience.

Listening to these stories from my parents had always been interesting. Sometimes instead of sharing the experiences, we divert to different topics. We discussed science, technology, politics, sports, mythology, and urban legends as well (note: a lot of my articles arose from our meal time discussions which I further wrote into articles).

While a lot of people always say that the screen time is definitely destroying our personal lives or we are not spending enough time with our families I rarely see anybody taking any action towards it. In my opinion probably it will not be possible for them to devote sometime for the family or to spend time away from devices because of the work. Yet I strongly believe that at least device free time for few minutes would be achieveable for each and every person. I would suggest you to try this device free meal time with your family at least once in a day. You will definitely notice that with this easy and simple ritual you will be able to connect better with your family and learn about the experiences from your family members. Saying from my own experience that the device free meal time will definitely be beneficial to each and every one.