Truth Is, I Don't Need an Excuse

When traveling by car, I normally split my time between listening to audiobooks, podcasts, and music. However, on my way home from visiting family for Thanksgiving, I wanted a break from the podcasts I was listening to, and so decided to have some blogs I subscribe to read to me by (I think?) Siri.

Now, the fact that a blog post was read to me by a voice assistant is NOT the point of this post. That in and of itself is not groundbreaking, although I did find that listening to my current Siri settings (an Australian sounding voice) narrate a blog post was an experience.

No, the point of this post is to add my own commentary to one of the posts I listened to: I’m Switching Back to Android by Kev Quirk.

Kev’s post initially caught my attention because I was curious what was driving him back to Android, as it’s a move I’ve considered in the past but never acted on. I’ve always come up with good reasons for not switching away from the Apple ecosystem, though I still keep an eye on the Android world, and attempt to make tool choices that allow me to migrate between platforms if needed.

But the part of his post that I really wanted to comment on was this line towards the end of the post, under the heading “Why Switch?”:

But in all honestly, I think it just boils down to the fact that I’ve been on iOS for quite some time now and I fancy a change. I think I was looking for an excuse to switch in my last post. Truth is, I don’t need an excuse, so I’m switching just because I want to. 🤷‍♂️

That’s a way of thinking that I need to consider more often. There are many times, both in technical decisions and in the general choices of everyday life, where I attempt to come up with an excuse for why I’m making the decision, and in some cases (or, let’s be honest, in a lot of cases) I don’t ultimately make a change, because the main reason I could come up with is “because I want to”. Is having a reason for my choices good? Yes, most definitely. But from time to time, the reasoning or excuse may be “because I want to”, and so long as my choice isn’t hurting someone else, that’s a completely acceptable approach!

So thanks, Kev, for switching to Android, and blogging about it, and giving me something to think on. I don’t intend to make the same change when it comes to my smartphone (at least, not yet), but I fully intend to more often consider the last line of that paragraph:

I fancy a change… Truth is, I don’t need an excuse: I’m switching just because I want to.