Number of words: 156

Ultimately I had to start becoming somewhat militant, That’s why I no longer own a mobile phone. I did for a while It seemed a good idea, but then my work colleagues got hold of the number. The little convenience-enhancer turned into a conduit for constant demands. It’s the telecoms equivalent of Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, you set off to catch some tasty sprats, but instead you suddenly find yourself on one end of the line with a massive fish at the other. It feels like a prize, but it drags your little boat way into the middle of the ocean. Still you keep hanging on. And then it turns out that the huge fish is no use anyway. Not wishing to live like Hemingways harried angler,I didn’t replace the mobile when. by accident, it got broken. 

Excerpted from pages 6-7 of Enough: breaking free from the world of excess by John Naish