I am steadily working on controlling and cutting my tech use, but sometimes I worry that I am inconveniencing other people because of it. At times, I feel like my choice to minimize my tech use causes trouble for my friends and acquaintances by making me less accessible, and I wonder how fair that is. Then something happened to give me clarity.

I was working on a project with someone who wanted to send me information via WhatsApp. I apologized that I no longer used WhatsApp and felt guilty for making things more complex for him. After several attempts to send the information in different formats, I began to feel worse about his trouble. I meekly apologized for not having WhatsApp, and his response surprised me. He said, without any frustration, “No need to apologize, you are free! Enjoy that freedom.”

The memories of being a slave to my chats flooded through my mind. No matter how hard I tried not to check my WhatsApp messages, I could never be free. I would just check quickly and then go check again a few minutes later. Though my choices may cause some inconvenience to others, I need to live for myself, not for others.