April 24, 2016: Del Rio News-Herald * OPINION * Letters to the Editor * Drop the devices and smell the flowers

Letter to the Editor,

Drop the devices and smell the flowers

It is a bright and beautiful day outside.

You can feel the warmth of the sun beaming its glorious rays and you can feel the brilliance of life all around you.

The kind of day that makes you feel so alive and alert; full of joy and exuberance, a day when you are glad and ever so thankful to be alive.

Everything seems so perfect and there appears to be nothing wrong in the whole wide world.

You sing: “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay! The hills are alive with the sound of music.”

Being outside is reinvigorating; breathing fresh air, not artificial air; feeling real warmth, not artificial heat; seeing real light, not artificial glaring light bulbs.

Mother Nature is nurturing.

The splash of radiant, vibrant colors explodes unlike anything coming across our screened devices.

Life up close and personal not filtered through a screen.

Real life is not a “reality show” life.

Real voices speaking not filtered through earbuds or speakers.

Moving your own body without the assistance of a video console that controls your every movement on the screen as you pretend to play, but are not really playing.

Virtual life is a pretend life, a false life masquerading as real; where feelings are transcribed and transformed into emoticons, artificial emotions made to appear real.

Little emotionless pictures capture our true feelings without saying a word, without thinking a thought, without feeling a real emotion.

Drop the devices and live a real life, for once in your life.

The world outside is real; the world viewed through devices is not living a real life.

At the end of your life you will never say, “I regret not sending more text messages! I wish I had played more video games! I wish I had posted more on social media! I lament not purchasing more items online! I wish I had taken more selfies!”

 Marian Casillas, Ed.D.