How to Lose Your Phone Without Losing Your Mind
A Stoic Manifesto
No one loses their phone and thinks, “aw shucks, time for a new one”.
No one.
First, comes denial…
Surely it’s right here in my purse, in my bag, in my pockets…
Somewhere in the house.
When reality sinks in, panic arrives…
Where did it go?
Where could it have gone?
Where was I just now?
When did I last see it?
Panic morphs into anger, directed forcefully at oneself.
How could I be so careless?
How could I let this happen?
Why did I have to go outside?
Why did I have to be so absent-minded?
Why did I have to be so distracted?
What is WRONG with ME?!!
Anger evaporates into confusion.
What should I do?
Is there an app to find a lost phone?
Can my network provider track it?
Should I reach out to the police?
Should I retrace all my steps and look for the device?
Is it too early to cry?
Is it even appropriate to cry?
Amid the confusion, you borrow a phone from a kind family member.
Try what you can,
Reach out to the police,
File a missing phone report,
And agonise,
Agonise over why everything you’ve ever attempted is doomed to fail,
Let your mind dramatically conjure up all the stories of how incompetent and inadequate you are,
The soothing words of your family do next to nothing to reassure you…
Then comes a montage of nostalgia about the lost phone…
It kept you company when you went on a challenging business trip,
It endured all the times you casually dropped it on the floor because your hands are too small to hold it properly.
You had so many pictures on it that you didn’t think to back up to the cloud, because you were too proud to pay extra money for storage.
All the angry texts you wrote to the exes that weren’t worth the effort.
Finally, resignation arrives.
You're never getting your phone back…
It's been a few hours and every minute that passes, the chances of retrieval become slimmer, and your hope diminishes in equal measure.
You self-flagellate and free-fall into an uneasy slumber.
Wake up with regret, tormenting yourself for causing this calamity.
You eat breakfast, feeling nothing but the bitter taste of self-criticality twinged with the sharp flavour of hope.
You wrack your brains…
You think…is there anything else? Any other angle that you haven't tried.
Any other way.
And you beg to a deity you don't believe in, “Please, just tell me there's a way to find it”
Finally acceptance dawns on you, like the cold water flowing down a mountain.
You hear of other people losing their phones.
You get a new SIM, a temp phone, salvage contacts, and some semblance of normalcy though you can't get everything running immediately.
The deafening silence of the lost phone is replaced with the tentative chirps of a temporary device that will simply have to stand in until you figure out your next move.
You're momentarily comforted.
But the dread and the guilt remain,
You tell yourself that you paid for the phone, no one else has to suffer the financial loss…
And yet… you feel like a criminal for allowing this to happen.
You question your ability,
You doubt your judgment,
And you wait, grudgingly, until things start to feel normal again.
The more you get used to your temporary device, the more you question the idea of a phone.
What is a phone really?
It's a device.
But it's really just an assemblage of ideas and constructs that allow you to carry out your life digitally.
It's not a limb
But without it, you're in limb-o
(Pun unintended)
The problem isn't in phones or their getting lost.
The problem is in the degree of reliance placed on a single device.
I have a laptop too.
Which arguably can do a lot of the same things that my phone can do.
But I don't use it.
In fact, it doesn't even occur to me that I could actually use my laptop to send / receive email and install WhatsApp to be able to talk to people.
It dawns on me that somehow I've managed to make my phone a single point of failure for my digital identity.
And with it gone, there's precious little I can do not to feel hopelessly isolated from the tools I use to function in the world.
Eventually though, the thing that bothers me the most is that I had never considered this would happen to me!
“Losing a phone”, I’d scoff, “that only happens to careless people.
I am far from careless. There’s not a careless cell in my body.”
The hubris. How classically Unstoical of me.
For someone who had ‘Premeditatio Malorum’ (a Stoic principle that means ‘premeditate bad outcomes and be prepared for them’) as her phone wallpaper for an unreasonable length of time, the irony is not lost on me.
Regardless, I decided if I hadn't been Stoical about this so far, I'd start now.
I decided I'd accept the situation and extract as much wisdom from it as possible and I'd not be caught unawares in the future.
First, I created a protocol for loss of phone and other key electronic devices that I rely heavily on and take outside the house. (Skip to the Appendix at the base of this article if you are in a hurry. All hyperlinks and procedures are valid at the time of writing, do keep an eye out for any changes to the rules)
I realised that for me it's just my phone and the phones of my family members.
I don't own a tablet/pad and my personal laptop is too clunky to carry around. I've already decided it's not leaving the house, ever.
Cool.
I recall that when I went to report the lost phone to the local police station, the first thing the cops suggested was to use ‘Find My Device’, as mine was an android device. And shockingly, I tried the app and managed to trace my lost phone’s location before the signal mysteriously dropped and I lost the trail.
Apparently, the app allows you to track your phone's physical location if it's connected to the internet. For those of you who have a tendency to leave your phone on silent and spend hours listening for a faint buzzing sound, this app is super handy because you can use it to cause your phone to loudly emit a ringtone so you can find it faster.
I strongly recommend installing this app on all family members’ phones to be able to trace each others' phones.
Also, please memorise your personal email accounts’ passwords. Relying on ‘tap a number on your device’ is pretty pointless when your phone is lost and you can’t prove your identity on a non-registered device.
Legally, the first thing you should do when you know your phone is stolen/lost (in India) is to file an FIR at the nearest police station. If it's a case of a misplaced phone, you're required to log an eLost complaint instead of an FIR.
Since I didn’t really know any of this, and I was a little apprehensive about going to the cops (aren’t we all), I decided to go to the St.Broseph Headquarters instead. (If you live in India and haven’t heard about St.Broseph (very unlikely), go to this reddit page). He’s the real deal.)
The volunteers at the St. Broseph HQ shared with me their Christmas plum cake, kind eyes and patient ears as I explained my situation to them. St. Broseph himself heard me out. He explained the formalities that would be required, advised me to remotely request a factory reset of my phone to prevent misuse of data and reassured me that his team would help me every step of the way.
While the loss of my phone hadn't moved me to tears, the kindness of the volunteers at the St. Broseph HQ certainly did. I was too frazzled to feel anything other than anxiety at the time, so I didn't show it.
And quite frankly, crying in public over a lost phone in one's 30s is (in my estimation) a disproportionate reaction.
Full disclosure, I allowed myself a smol bawl after I got home and everyone had gone off to sleep. I'm not ashamed of this by the way, not one bit.
I returned home from St.Broseph HQ with 2 simple instructions, to find the box that my phone came in (to obtain the IMEI number), and obtain a replacement SIM from my network provider so I could log an eLost complaint and file a CEIR report.
After completing the formalities, it was up to the Police to find my phone.
Literally.
The wait was agonising at first. I added to my misery by longingly looking at other people who wantonly used their phones.
I tormented myself by thinking of all the data and pictures with immense sentimental value that I'd never get back. Thankfully, my Stoic conditioning did kick in at some point and I was able to function normally within 48 hours.
I went to work, handled all my duties and chores at home. Got all my critical apps restored onto my temporary device and even decided to weigh my options for a new phone. I'd still pout dramatically on occasion, but I dare say I handled the whole thing with a decent degree of grace and good humour.
Most importantly though, I wrote up the following appendix (lovingly dubbed the ‘Phone Loss Protocol’) to help myself and other people if they ever needed it.
Appendix: Phone Loss Protocol
- When a phone is stolen/lost, go to the nearest police station where the theft/loss occurred and report it.
- If you’ve already installed the 'Find My Device' app for Android, you may be able to trace its location yourself and establish if your phone is really lost or just hiding in your laundry basket (or an equally unlikely place in your own house) because you’re an absent-minded goof.
- Once you’ve established that your phone is indeed stolen / lost, the authorities will advise whether you need to file an eLost or an FIR depending upon the facts of the case
You’ll need the phone’s IMEI number to log these complaints. This is usually printed on the box of your phone (the actual physical box, so don’t throw that away after unboxing). - Once the eLost/FIR is lodged, obtain a new SIM from your network provider and insert it into a new device so you can function properly in the world again.
It takes anywhere between 2-8 hours for a new SIM to activate, so prepare to be unreachable for an uncomfortable length of time. SMS service may take even longer to be activated, say 48 hours, so anything that requires the use of an OTP is also unavailable for a while. - Find workarounds for this. It’s critical to remember the phone numbers of key emergency contacts (family and friends who live in the same city as you) to call for help. Write down the phone numbers of key people from work in a physical notebook so you can notify them from an alternative device.
- To prevent misuse of your phone and to enable the police to trace it, it’s critical to register the IMEI number of your phone into the CEIR portal. Doing this renders your phone unusable. And the moment the lost phone is switched on (presumably by the person who stole it or the person it was sold to after being stolen), the phone’s location is pinged to the local police station where the eLost is lodged. You will also be notified of this via email. With any luck, if the phone is found by the police, they will return it to you and close the complaint.
- Maintenance tasks to smooth out the entire ordeal as a Stoic (Post facto):
- Expect that bad things happen to everyone. The world is unfair. Put your suffering in perspective: you’ve lost a phone, not a limb. You’re not dying. You’re inconvenienced by this. Feel your disappointment to an appropriate degree. Use your judgment (and Contemptuous expressions) to remind yourself of what’s really at stake in this situation.
- Accept the situation and focus on the solution. Do your part and spare no thought to the outcome. You don’t have to linger in horror stories that start with the dreadful words, “what if…?”
- Rely on people for advice and comfort. There’s more kindness in the world than you would expect. See both the good and the bad sides to this situation to have a balanced perspective.
- Hydrate, eat on time, cry if you have to.
If you’ve not lost your phone and wish to be prepared on the off chance it happens to you or to a loved one, use these tips: (Premeditation of evils/Preemption and prevention)
- Memorise phone numbers of the key people in your life, and the people who live in the same city as you to call for help in an emergency.
- Memorise your Google account passwords and get used to logging into non-registered devices.
- Set up an automatic backup schedule to Google Drive/Photos so you don’t lose all your data through a simple factory reset. Pay for extra storage if needed. Your phone should never be the only source of important personal data. If it falls into the wrong hands, it can be manually factory reset (without unlocking) and sold on the black market.
- Save the IMEI number of your and your loved ones’ devices in an accessible offline manner. IMEI is printed on the back of your phone’s physical delivery cardboard box. Other ways to find the IMEI of your device include dialling *#06#.
- Note down key phone numbers and email addresses for work contacts and save this offline for emergency use.
- Install and use the Find My Device app to get familiar with how it works.
- Bonus tip: Donate to / Volunteer with organisations that help ease the suffering in the world. It’ll remind you of your privilege and wake you up to the reality of how important it is to have a Stoical mindset in a complex and unpredictable world.
UPDATE: If you've read this far, I'm delighted to share that the police have indeed found my phone, and it has been safely returned to me. I did lose data which was only saved on my phone and nowhere else. I'm grateful, relieved and still feeling some degree of disbelief. My faith in the ‘system’ is restored and my respect for organisations like St.Broseph has massively increased.
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