Disconnect to connect

There’s something everyone who works in tech knows but pretends they don’t: we never really switch off. The laptop closes, but the mind keeps compiling. The phone sits on the dinner table, face down; a symbolic, almost ceremonial gesture; while the brain is still refactoring that piece of code that wasn’t quite elegant enough.

I know this because that’s exactly who I am.

But today was different. Today I switched off. Not the computer; I do that every day. I switched off me. I spent the entire Sunday with my family, without opening the terminal, without checking notifications, without thinking about deploys. Just being there, present, in what truly matters.

Sunday’s menu

And as every proper family Sunday goes, the star of the day was the food. I cooked an entire menu from scratch, calmly, unhurried, no pomodoro timer; just the oven timer.

The main course was a salmon with shrimp and creamy topping that filled the entire house with its aroma. On the side, a pommes aligot so stretchy it became a spectacle of its own, a garlic lemon rice that was aromatic and simple as it should be, and a crispy roasted broccoli with parmesan that converted even those who swore they didn’t like broccoli.

It was a beautiful table. The kind you look at and feel it was worth the effort. The kind no console.log could ever reproduce.

What we forget

The truth is we spend the entire week solving other people’s problems; or creating our own, depending on the day; and we forget that there are people on the other side of the office door waiting for our most present version.

It doesn’t need to be anything grand. It doesn’t need to be a trip or an event. Sometimes it’s just sitting together, eating well, laughing at something silly someone said. Being there. Whole. Without the anxiety of checking if the build passed.

We underestimate how good it feels to simply not be available for a few hours. The world doesn’t stop. Slack survives. The issues are still there, patiently waiting on Monday.

The irony

And then Sunday evening came.

People left, the kitchen was clean, the house was quiet. And what did I do? I opened the laptop. Of course. To write this post. About disconnecting.

I know. The irony isn’t lost on me.

But maybe that’s exactly the point. We don’t need to become digital monks. We don’t need to swear we’ll never touch a keyboard on the weekend again. What we need is to consciously choose when to switch on and when to switch off. And today I chose to switch off the entire day; and switch on again only now, at night, to note that it was worth it.

So, if you’re reading this on a Sunday evening or a Monday morning: close this tab. Go hug someone. Cook something. The code can wait. People can’t always.