the reawakening

just a day. one day. that's all i needed to complete the challenge.

a year and half ago, i bought a book titled Do One Thing a Day That Scares You and i have done, to date, exactly two things. my second challenge was to live without social media for one day. i've done that before, but it was never on purpose. this time, it would be a conscious choice.

and, boy, conscious it was.

typically, i hopped on FB multiple times throughout the day for 5-10 minutes at a time. i'd be in between something and often scold myself for not just letting myself "be" for those moments, but it was an easy voice to shut off. so, on that first day, it was no surprise to have to stop myself multiple times from logging on. i realized how hopping on so many times affected my attention and how often i used this as an excuse to push off starting a project. this would then lead me to stay on social media longer than planned which would delay starting a project, if at all. then i'd beat myself up for letting another day slip by without getting to "that" (whatever "that" would be). at the end of that first day, i realized that i got SO.MUCH.DONE. i then decided to extend the challenge one more day. then, one more. then, one more, and now i'm at 4 weeks.

keeping myself off social media opened up a world i had forgotten about. it also made me realize how social media affected my mood, and living without it has allowed me to feel grief on a level i didn't think possible because i was present with every emotion. 

let me first say what social media i'm on. i have FB, instagram, and twitter accounts. FB was my only social media outlet for most of the last 10 years. i signed up with twitter over a year ago and quickly realized it made my blood boil faster than FB did, so i rarely went on it by choice. i signed up for an instagram account last year and have enjoyed that immensely as i use it for artistic reasons only. 

the internet is such an easy place to spread misinformation, and as much as i would like to lay misinformation at the feet of trump and his supporters, this issue belongs to everyone, even me. i have been called out more than once for sharing something on FB that was false. and, while i do try to take the time before sharing to do a quick search to see what other news sources are saying about a particular topic, things slip. having to research an article's authenticity takes time and that is scarce. lame excuse, but true.

so i went back to reading just the paper that gets delivered. i know i'm getting news that's at least 24 hours old, but i don't care. i'm reading from a legitimate source and i don't have to go research on-line to see if it's true. i trust the journalist at the Los Angeles Times to have already done that for me which is why they're the journalists and i am not. anyone can pretend to be a journalist on-line, and too many do. people also forget opinion is not fact. for this, we can thank trump and his supporters.

even though i'm reading the news from one main source, i still get enraged by whatever idiotic thing trump has done, thought, or said, but i then take that anger and release it by working on, and completing, a project, by playing with my children (imagine that!), by cooking, by going outside and watering my plants and smiling at the butterflies and birds. this is just a small example of what has changed and it has been amazing for my soul. by popping on FB multiple times throughout the day, i've been bombarding myself with all the horrible things that exist in this world. i was angry ALL the time. all.the.time. i felt like the end of the world was happening every day. i worried about the future. i couldn't believe how stupid our country had gotten. all this and more, every day, buzzing around in my brain. for 4 weeks now i have been free of this. do i still worry about the future? hell yes. but it's not all-consuming right now. i find myself more present than before in whatever i'm doing in the moment that i'm doing it.

i've been listening to music more and reading. reading! both for pleasure and academic. i've been writing. i rediscovered photography with my Canon A-1 film camera and, in those "in between" moments, i sit and stare at a wall or cuddle my kids. 

i have also been grieving. hard. i cleaned out closets and approached projects i had wanted to do since we moved 3 years ago and others that i've been wanting to get to for 15-20 years. going through decades of photos tossed me into a whirlwind of emotions. i found letters that my mom left me written by my grandfather and some by my good-for-nothing father. my mom had told me about these letters throughout my life, but i thought they got lost in either the multiple moves my mom made in lithuania or in a flood that she had some years ago. i never realized i had them for the last 10 years, and making this discovery crippled me emotionally for a while. i don't think i would've been able to feel so deeply if i had hopped on FB, nor do i think i would've been able to process my findings for as long as i needed. i'm not someone who hides her life or emotions, but what of it if i had posted about my find that day? people would have read it, commented on it (maybe), clicked "like" (maybe) and then my feed would've scrolled on, the sentiment buried. just like we bury our emotions with all these social media distractions throughout the day. is it any wonder depression has skyrocketed? we hide behind a screen curating our lives to be the best version we feel it should be. most of us hide the ugly, and for those of us who don't necessarily do that, creating a post about the ugly doesn't do justice to the emotion's reality and, so, you're still left kind of empty no matter how many "likes" or comments you get. it took a few days for me to process and accept finding what i thought was lost, and without FB as a distraction, i couldn't bury it all in my feed.

will i be off social media forever? no, probably not, but i went back to instagram about a week or two ago and discovered that i'm spending more time on it than before which made me realize that social media feeds my "all or nothing" personality. it's this "all or nothing" that has gotten me into so much trouble throughout my life. i'm afraid that i will struggle with any attempts to limit my time on social media. 

as a result, i repeatedly ask myself, do i miss facebook? and, honestly? not really, though i have missed communicating with a few people with whom i'd communicate on a daily basis. i've seen that the way the world is now, social media is how we communicate with people. is this good? i don't think so, but i don't know what the solution is. i feel the social media ball is rolling down a hill and there's no way to slow it down, much less stop it. i also don't know how high that hill is, but it's very obvious the more people we connect with, and to, on social media, the lonelier we, as a society, feel. i read somewhere recently that we humans need human interaction and touch in order to function normally. this is one of the reasons it is strongly encouraged to hug children as much as possible; it releases endorphins which helps with development. if we don't get "x" amount of touch per day, we can slip into depression. how much time do you spend behind a screen vs spending time with someone, getting/giving a hug, holding a hand, or giving/getting a kiss? i bet the former gets more time. i know for the last 10 years it did for me.

it's up to us to change what's not working in our lives. the internet and social media are addictive, and while i don't have an addictive personality, per se, i totally believe i was - am - addicted. my challenge now is to find a balance between being a part of this century and not losing myself. i didn't like being angry or upset all the time or, dare i say, finding myself jealous of friends' posts, but i did often come across useful information that i wouldn't otherwise see. i need to find that balance, and find a way to have more contact in-person and less contact via computer screen. i challenge you to do the same.