I’ve given up social media for Lent. And for a variety of other reasons.
I do believe in God, and my faith is pretty important in my life. I don’t talk about it a lot, and write about it even less frequently, simply because I think YOU will ask me if you want to know. I don’t subscribe to the theory that I MUST hammer anyone on this planet with my beliefs, and I don’t identify with most of the ‘religious’ public figures you could name.
I truly believe that I honor God by treating people around me better than I treat myself, and I’m committed to spending time each day thinking about my place in the universe. Giving something I enjoy up for Lent each year is something I do as a part of my consideration of where I am in the universe. I don’t do it for any specific religion or denomination or church or pastor/priest/minister, and it’s certainly not something that most people know about me. I don’t hide it or lie about it, but I don’t brag about it either. I could also care less if you give up Oreos, orgasms, tv, or spending time with your in-laws. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine. 😀
So this year I decided to take a break from most of social media. I stay connected to most of my extended family through email and facebook, so I was reluctant to pull the plug on those for practical reasons. So I kept email, and deactivated my facebook. I’m staying away from Twitter, except for checking it a few times a week just in case someone has tried to get ahold of me on it.
I check Gmail each day, and there are about four people I’ll say ‘hi’ to if I see them on Hangouts, simply because chatting with them for a few minutes each week keeps me sane.
We are also having some old friends stay with us for most of each week for the next month or so while they handle some family/legal issues in town, and as nice as it will be having them around, it will be a drain on my time.
And work.
I’m one of those lucky ones (like probably most of you reading this) who has to work in order to eat. For the most part I like my job, although I’d happily give it up if I could. Due to some company restructuring we’ve had some upper management layoffs, which affords me with the opportunity to work six nights a week until mid-summer sometime. Yay me. I’m not real happy about it, and I think it’s grossly unfair. However it’s an income, and whatever doesn’t kill me will make me stronger right?
So for those reasons (and the book that I’m editing at the speed of erosion thanks to my pesky real life) I decided to step back from social media.
My thoughts so far:
Facebook is a freaking time burglar. Not the kind who will steal a can of soup to feed his hungry children. The kind who smashes your window, steals your valuables, trashes your stuff they don’t want, pees on your couch, clogs your toilet, kicks your dog, keys your car, and makes a bunch of long distance calls while they’re in your house. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll get on facebook for two minutes only to piss away an hour. Or more. Often much more. It feels good to NOT care what’s going on with everyone I ever met. Because I think the reality is that I don’t care what someone I went to high school with had for lunch. Or how much they hate/love something. Scrolling though all those posts on facebook was useless, and I feel good walking away from it. I care if someone dies, or has a baby, or gets married. I don’t care what color tie your uncle Albert was buried in however, or how much smarter your two week old is than every other baby, or why your husband is better than the rest of ours.
Getting my news from the internet is supposed to be better than getting it from tv. For starters I can pick and choose and stay informed about politics and world affairs while avoiding celebrity bullshit. Plus tv news totally sucks, unless you find an outlet that feeds your particular political slant. But switching to tv news for a few days convinced me that internet news is just as bad presentation/agenda wise. At least the television news doesn’t come with a comment section.
**Have you ever read the comments that accompany EVERY story on the internet? Those comments make me so sad for our planet. I hold out hope that it’s just the same 50 dumbasses posting over and over again under different names. But that’s a theory that’s too good to be true.**
I don’t miss any of it as much as I thought I would, and some of it I don’t miss at all.
Love, Isabella 