I recall the D.A.R.E. instructor entering our third grade classroom. She was a welcomed disruption to our third grade class schedule, whatever insurmountable tasks they may have been back then (looking back of course, I bet it was like adding numbers or something trivial now).
There was either going to be a video presentation and/or her own live presentation. We were going to learn about how to resist the temptations of drugs. Looking back now at that, wow, I didn’t realize you had to start with the messaging so early but I imagine it was more than needed.
She likely focused on smoking that particular day I am recalling. She was a no nonsense presenter, carried a serious tone, and yet was certainly approachable. It was more than clear: smoking bad, drinking bad. If you could also get kids to understand how to resist peer pressure, then her mission would be accomplished.
What I remember next is either second hand or I might have even seen it, but only a glimpse. The story though certainly goes like this.
Kids who left the room for some reason saw our D.A.R.E. instructor, fresh off a riveting “don’t you smoke kids!” session, in fact herself smoking just outside the exit doors at the end of the hallway!
She was caught. Found to be a hypocrite!
You can’t survive a third grade rumor mill at that point. This newly discovered fact spread like smoke in a room. The whole student body essentially knew by the end of the day.
I know I am this D.A.R.E. instructor. For (get this)… I also partake in too much social media, meme sharing, doom scrolling, video gazing.
Yet here I am writing on how not to be caught in the digital snare.
I am but an obese fitness instructor. Or a smoking D.A.R.E. instructor.
Why would anyone, let alone myself, take me seriously?!
I am sucked into the dopamine brain hijacking system, waiting in anticipation mere nanoseconds to see what the next absolutely random/non-linear content item appears as I scroll up. And of course sadly, it keeps skewing towards darker content, worse news, more outrageous thumbnails, etc. It’s a race to the bottom of the brain’s capacity to sort and sift information.
There are Instagram group chats I exclusively share hilarious and/or dark memes in.
Hey, I am not saying anything about dark humor. But constant sharing, daily, even hourly?
What sort of formation am I participating in with such frequent doom meme sharing?
There is my new found addiction to YouTube, ever since Spring of 2020. I really never used the app much on my phone prior, and would watch a video or two now and then.
Since Spring of 2020, YouTube is my go to for information, TV, recaps, deep dives, and…..distraction. If I climb on my high horse and say I don’t watch TV like the boomers, that’s cute. But my phone will tell me how long I’ve had the app open and running daily. And there is no escaping the amount of time it is measuring. Which is usually an embarrassing amount.
Okay so I’ve established I am the smoking D.A.R.E. instructor. Clever.
But what lesson did I get from her? What lesson did the students get?
Well first off, there was no fall out. There was no major scandal and her resignation from the organization handed in later that day, with a pre cancel-culture like apology statement posted the next day. Mainly because social media didn’t exist yet.
But also because none of that happened. In fact, it was her response to the discovery which probably made the greatest impact to all of us in elementary school, at such an impressionable age.
She owned it. She didn’t hide it. And she took the humble posture that she says what she says in front of kids daily in order to have them avoid what she has struggled with in her life.
Oh. Okay then. It got a lot more real all of a sudden. There was no denial but instead, there was doubled down commitment to help sound the warning sirens to any and all before they ever pick up a cigarette.
Her message then was able to continue on not in the light of a hypocrite, but in the light of a fellow struggling human who knows the dangers of her actions all too well. A person who wants to impact anyone, a single person if that is all, to assure they never get addicted to smoking.
And rather this be from the lense of someone who never ‘went there,’ we all started to realize these interrupting sessions were dispatches from a person who more than ‘went there’ and could take people only where she had gone.
Has gone.
And was going right after this session.
Off to puff a smoke.
And what she could only hope for herself was one fewer cigarette today than the amount she would consume. And even less the next day. And slightly less once again.
But first, to tend to those she can save now.
We don’t have to live a life of distraction. And if you can go cold turkey with it, more power to you.
We just need to be real with each other in this mess of the digital distraction era.
I am distracted. You are too.
But I’d rather aim at doing what is necessary to take a lot less puffs moving forward.
Return To Eremos 
Well said.
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