If you have a smartphone, you’ve felt the guilt. We’ve all experienced it. We use our phones too much, and we feel enslaved. But how can we fix it? We delete apps, we try to use our phones less, but inevitably we go back to our old ways. The problem is that we never address the root problem, which is ultimately spiritual. If we want to form a new, healthy relationship with technology, we need to sever our unhealthy attachments — including to our phones. That’s what T. J. Burdick helps us do in this fine book. Through timeless spiritual practices you’ll learn how to treat your phone prudently, as a tool and not an addictive slot machine. If you want to master your tech, and not the other way around, put down your device and read this book!
— Brandon Vogt, content director at Word on Fire Ministries
If left unchecked, technology addiction can be a major source of unhappiness, a drain on personal productivity, and a potential lure to sinfulness. In Detached, T. J. Burdick provides a systematic retreat approach to help us gain control over our devices and our own behavior. Based upon timeless truths of the Faith, this twenty-one-day retreat offers a helpful framework for placing our overly wired lives back into balance and well-being.
— Lisa M. Hendey, author of The Grace of Yes
Has your life become too phony? Are you so attached to your phone that you never feel at rest without it, while you neglect the family and friends who are attached to you, and the God who gave you all life? If you would seek to change your priorities and grow in a life of genuine happiness and holiness, then set aside that glowing rectangle for just a while and let T. J. Burdick guide you on the twenty-one-day retreat within the wise, warm pages of Detached: Put Your Phone in Its Place. Replete with startling scientific findings, humorous personal anecdotes, and penetrating insights of the Church and her saints, this book will withdraw you from worldly technological addiction and direct you toward appropriate use of the wonders of technology, as you advance toward greater intimacy with God, and reorient toward the people and things that truly matter the most.
— Kevin Vost, Psy.D., author of How to Think Like Aquinas
Whether your relationship with your phone is under control or spiraling into chaos, you need this book. T. J. Burdick uses timeless wisdom and insight to steer you into a life where you are controlling your phone, not the other way around.
— Sarah Reinhard, author and blogger, SnoringScholar.com
All who desire true happiness will read Detached from T. J. Burdick. Many may be intimidated by the idea of a permanent hiatus from their phone and apps, but T. J. convincingly proves that it is possible with this thoroughly researched and shrewdly crafted approach to using phones in the right proportion and with the correct purpose.
— Shaun McAfee, author of Reform Yourself! and founder of EpicPew.com
Detached
Put Your Phone in Its Place
T. J. Burdick
Our Sunday Visitor
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
Huntington, Indiana 46750
Except where noted, the Scripture citations used in this work are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible — Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright © 1965, 1966, 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America copyright © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. — Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica copyright © 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. — Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Every reasonable effort has been made to determine copyright holders of excerpted materials and to secure permissions as needed. If any copyrighted materials have been inadvertently used in this work without proper credit being given in one form or another, please notify Our Sunday Visitor in writing so that future printings of this work may be corrected accordingly.
Copyright © 2018 by T. J. Burdick
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All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without permission from the publisher. For more information, visit: www.osv.com/permissions.
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
200 Noll Plaza
Huntington, IN 46750
1-800-348-2440
ISBN: 978-1-68192-359-8 (Inventory No. T2048)
eISBN: 978-1-68192-360-4
LCCN: 2018950741
Cover design: Tyler Ottinger
Cover art: Shutterstock
Interior design: Chelsea Alt
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To my children Sofía, Saraí, Santiago, and Michael, who will vanquish far worse temptations in technology than I could ever imagine.
Table of Contents
Day 1 — The System: Preparing to Detach
Day 2 — The Purge: Eliminating the Chaff
Day 3 — The Goal: True Happiness
Day 4 — The Truth: Admitting Defeat
Day 5 — The Enemy: Distraction
Day 6 — The Miracle: You Are an Artistic Masterpiece
Day 7 — The Foundation of Holiness: Your Priorities
Day 8 — Thy Kingdom Come: Heaven on Earth
Day 9 — Our Daily Bread: Your Place in the Story of Salvation
Day 10 — Lead Us Not into Temptation: You Can’t Do This Alone
Day 11 — Your True Passion: What Gives You Energy?
Day 12 — The Interior War: Resistance