Over Winter Break, I, along with some of my extended family, spent approximately 4 days in the middle of nowhere in a house running on solar power and harvested rainwater. Here are a few things I learned:

1. I can live without cell phone reception, but I cannot live without Wi-Fi.

I had no cell reception in the house. I also had no cell reception in any of the areas we visited while staying in the house. Surprisingly, this did not bother me as much as I thought it would, and I suspect one of the main reasons was because the house had Wi-Fi (a house doesn’t get cell reception but has Wi-Fi... welcome to the 21st Century). Therefore, I could still talk to my friends through Internet-based messaging apps and work on the college applications I procrastinated on...

But then, on the last night we were there, the Wi-Fi suddenly shut off. None of us had any experience with technology, so no one could fix it. The entire trip, I used the Wi-Fi to work on applications, talk to friends, and listen to the BBC Radio (I LIVE for the accents). However, within five minutes of the Wi-Fi shutting off, my brain shut off, too, and I simply went to bed.

It was 9:00 PM. I was useless without the internet and did not know how to handle myself. If I really think about it, it’s concerning I am so reliant on the Internet, but in that moment, all I knew to do was just go to sleep. (Talk about leaving 2016 with a bang...)

2. We take water for granted.

You need water to do things like take a shower and flush the toilet. Coincidentally, those two things were things we could not do in the house. The entire supply of water for the house came from harvested rainwater. Now, think about the fact this place is in the middle of what looks like a desert, and then realize it does not rain that much in desert-esque climate, and then realize you have no other way to get water.

The water tank was clearly visible from the outside, and it was like sweet torture watching the water supply decrease with each flush of the toilet and each wash of the dishes. We had to drive 20 minutes just to be able to take a shower because no water existed to do so in the house.

(WARNING FOR SOMETHING KINDA GROSS. By the end, we had to simply stop flushing the toilet and go pee outside whenever we could because there was literally no water to spare. WARNING OVER.)

Moral of the story, one bathroom and one small tank of water cannot support nine people over four days.

3. It’s really hard to be stressed in a peaceful environment.

I believe a lot of our emotions and identity are influenced by our surroundings. When I am at home, I often find myself stressed because everyone in my family is stressed (three of us are students and one of us has a job requiring his attention outside of his normal working hours). I look outside my window, and I see cars and more college students also stressed (I live on campus in my city).

At the house we stayed, not a single house existed in my line of sight. I could not hear any cars or any car honks. I could walk outside and become enveloped in silence. As I mentioned above, I was working on college applications during the trip, but not a single moment passed where I remember being consumed by stress, like how I normally am when working on anything college related at home.

The peaceful environment contributed to my calmness throughout the whole college process. It made me want to create a peaceful environment inside my house to make myself feel calm more often.

If anyone has the chance to, I highly recommend taking time off to experience something you are completely unaccustomed to. It left me feeling refreshed and grateful. You realize many things about yourself, you learn to appreciate things you take for granted, and you just might also learn to be okay with peeing outside in the dark.