Life "off the page"

Hello to whomever is reading this!

I am imaging my readership has gone down somewhat of recent - yesterday morning I dropped the bombshell - I gave up facebook. No warning, no fasting just *blip* gone. Its now been over 24 hours since I made announcement and so far I am LOVING life post the big FB.

So, what prompted the change? I had a couple of people quite concerned because I fear the message I sent was a little maudlin in nature, but I'm seriously ok, I promise! I had many many reasons that I've pondered over a REALLY long period of time to get to the point where I made the call yesterday and here's just a few.

1. Time
Ok this one is kind of obvious - I spent WAYYYYY too much time on facebook, I'd sit down just to "check my newsfeed" for two seconds and all of a sudden two hours had gone by! I'd even started checking it at work, which is really bad, so I knew it was time to admit I had a problem and give it the ol' heave ho! Time is precious, life is precious, and it's far too precious to be watching pixels on the screen no matter HOW social the media claims to be!

2. Drama
Another obvious one. In my line of work, facebook is a MASSIVE cause of drama, not just for me but for my clients, for the kids, for everyone. I'd even go snooping on people's pages whom I'd had conflict with a Looooonnngg time ago, and it would make me cranky, and make me relive all the old hurts and I'd start having awful arguments with that person in my head....(I'm not crazy I SWEEEARRRRR) and I just got the point where it was just causing me drama indirectly as well as directly.  I have enough trouble dealing with the drama of just getting through every day life without adding to my struggles through sick thought patterns that keep me down in the dumps!!!! I CRAVE simplicity in my life, and I want to do whatever I can to get it. I'm trying to change my self talk, and if facebook is the biblical "eye" or "hand" that gets in the way of me doing that I say CUT IT OFF! :)

3. Lifestyle
This kind of goes along with time, but goes further. My lifestyle is very sedentary, and granted there are a LOT of reasons for that. Now, let me preface this by saying I realise this may be a bit of a moot point in the short term considering I am about to have major ankle surgery and be completely sedentary for at least 4-6 weeks, but I'm thinking bigger picture here......there's many reasons I dont do much, work and TV being the other two prime culprits. I can't help the work aspect of it, and hubbie LOVES watching telly and movies with me, so what's left I can get rid of....you guessed it.....

4. The Principle
No, I'm not referring to Mormons here! I'm talking more from a basically ethical point of view. It is my honest belief that, shock horror, not everyone wants or needs to know about my life. Especially people who can't be bothered making contact with me OUTSIDE of facebook. That might sound harsh, but I need to be a bit harsh when it comes to setting boundaries because in the past I've had NO boundaries. The truth is, as arrogant as it sounds, I know I'm a good friend, and I know how much I love and care for my friends. I put a LOT into my friendships and the people I give my friendships to have to be people who will be good friends to me to. As the saying goes, "If you are absent during my struggle, do not expect to be present during my success" ~Will Smith~

5. Quality Vs Quantity
So this leads me to my next motivation......my friends themselves. See, I had a bit of a revelation the other day. I was thinking about all the people who I have on my facebook who I did know at one point from different places, and I reflected on what friendships were like before Facebook. Before Facebook, when you moved away from somewhere, there's nearly always a few people who work hard to stay in touch, but over time the rest slip away.....and it was ok. There was no malice, no anger, no hurt, just people get busy and things naturally change. People grow apart and grow up. I honestly believe that while humans were made for relationships, we weren't made to keep in touch with everyone single person we've ever met. They dont need to know everything that is going on with me, and I don't need to know everything that is going on with them.

The quality of one's social life is not, contradictory to what we've been led to believe, a function of how many friends you have on facebook, or how many "likes" you get, or even how many comments  you get to your latest status message or post. Of course, I never really believed that......

Or did I?

Shameful as it is to admit, even I have slipped into the cycle of believing that I'm popular based upon the activity on my newsfeed. The little thrill when you see that little box on the top header indicating you have a bunch of notifications, or even better, a message....the deliciousness of clicking that notification and opening up a post or picture I've put on there and seen that others have commented. Counting up the likes......

We've all done it, we've all at one stage or another fallen victim to the "facebook high". But is that how I want to see myself?

I realised that the time I'm investing in facebook I could be putting into face to face time with real friends. Friends I know now. Friends who are present in the moment. Instead of looking back at those I used to know, I chose to let go of those who dont keep in touch with me and instead focus on the ones who do. I want to invest my time, my energy and myself into those people and cultivate strong friendships rather than sit behind a computer screen broadcasting some watered down version of myself for people who dont invest the same amount of time and energy and self into me.

And finally, I gave up Facebook after watching this video.....

The conviction I felt was so strong it nearly burned a hole in my chest. I decided right then and there the minute I watched this that my days pouring over Facebook were over. I can't go back now. I feel like I've entered a new part of my life, and I want more out of it. I want to drink deep and soak up every last drop of this world....and I can't do it while I'm more focused on facebook than on real faces.

So I hope you will understand. I hope that my friends will follow me off the page and won't let me go into the abyss. I will do everything I can do keep in touch with as many people as I can. I hope you will indulge me this selfishness and humour my efforts to improve my relationships. But if you don't, that's ok. I promise.

Til next time,