Losing control!

The growing tech dependency....

How many of us are really in control of the outcomes of our daily lives?

Think about it.

Are you truly in control of your day… or are you just reacting to whatever the system throws at you?

I’ve come to the conclusion that, in many ways, we’ve become pawns.
And that may sound dramatic, but hear me out.

Several years back, we had a major freeze. For some, that meant days—sometimes weeks—without electricity. Some people brushed it off. Others had extreme emotional reactions.

That was the moment it really hit me: we’re not nearly as in control as we think.

We’ve built lives that depend on simplicity and convenience.
Electricity. Gas. Cell phones. Internet.
So much of what we do is tied to systems we don’t own and can’t fix.

That became even more obvious last week when there was a massive AT&T outage in my area.

At 9:00 a.m. on a Wednesday, I had no internet—only phone service. So I adjusted and went into the office to make my client calls. What I thought would be a few hours turned into the entire day.

But something interesting happened.

I started talking to my neighbors.
Actual conversations. Outside. Face to face.

More people were out. More people were engaging. Less people were stuck inside glued to screens. It felt… different. In a good way.

Some folks, on the other hand, had clearly given their lives to the Wi-Fi gods and had no idea what to do with themselves.

Luckily my son was in school, so I didn’t have to deal with it until later, but the rest of the house? We were all scrambling a bit.

And that’s when I realized how much control we’ve quietly handed over.

AT&T controls whether I can work from home.
Verizon is basically attached to my hip.

Yes, I need these things to run a business. That part is real.
But it also made me ask: how did people build successful businesses in the 90s?

Landlines.
House calls.
Face-to-face meetings.

Not Zoom. Not Wi-Fi. Not constant connectivity.

Virtual tools let us move faster and scale quicker, no doubt.
But to what end?

What am I chasing?
And why am I chasing it so hard?

Why do I put myself under arbitrary time pressure?
Why do I feel trapped by tools that didn’t even exist a few decades ago?

These are questions worth asking.

What would you do if the Wi-Fi went down?

Most of us would immediately look for another connection.
Library. Starbucks. Hotspot. Anything.

It’s almost like a dependency.

Some people can roll with it and keep life moving.
Others feel completely stuck.

I went to the office and got through my day, but I still had to ask myself:
why am I so tied to this?

Yes, I want to grow a successful business.
But why does that have to mean being permanently attached to a screen?

One of my goals for 2026 is to loosen that grip.

More physical books.
More device-free weekends.
More breathing room.

Not because technology is bad, but because over-reliance is dangerous.

Right now, everything in our homes runs through Wi-Fi.
TVs. Laptops. Phones. Security systems.

When it goes down, life doesn’t just slow down—it changes completely.

So why did we give up so much control in exchange for convenience?

Does it make life easier? Sure.
But so does not depending on it for every waking moment.

We’re also watching the same thing happen with AI right now—massive hype, massive money, and another layer of digital dependency being sold as “efficiency” and “progress.”

This isn’t conspiracy.
This was my reality after 12 hours without internet.

And what it showed me is that many of us aren’t ready to unplug, even temporarily, because we’ve given too much of ourselves away.

Maybe it’s time to take a little of that control back.

Not all of it.
Just enough to remind ourselves that we still own parts of our day, our attention, and our lives.

And honestly… we deserve that much.