My phone’s GPS is faulty.

I’ll try to navigate to a meeting and it will work about 40% of the time… Usually, it won’t lock on my position or will bounce around from tower to tower as I travel, showing that I’m sometimes a quarter of a mile away from where I really am. Most days I’ll just look at the step by step instructions or the route it’s mapped out and just memorize it.

It’s a known manufacturing defect and I could probably get it fixed for free.

The truth is I kinda like it the way it is. Sure, I could really use a reliable navigation tool – especially in a new city – and there are times when I really need to know where the heck I am.

But, it forces me not to be reliant on a tool that could fail at any moment. Remember when Apple Maps was sending people through lakes and fields and other things that aren’t roads? How useful was that?

I remember driving with a paper map in my car before there was GPS and did just fine. Sometimes we just need a broken tool to remind us that we don’t actually need it. What other unnecessary tools, gadgets, apps, bloatware, etc are we carrying around because we think we “need” them?

March of Gratitude Day 28: I’m Grateful for broken tools that remind me that I’m fully capable without them.