For the last few days, I’ve not accessed social media on my phone because I deleted all social media off it!
After a hissy fit where I felt like shit because I was constantly picking up the bloody thing to Twitter that would feed me information that made me angry (mainly news related), I thought time to just get rid of the whole lot.
I’ve done this before and usually, I end up putting the social media back on and going through the whole cycle again. Let’s see how far I go this time.
Here’s what I noticed:
(a) Immediately calmer – it only took a day but where I would have spent the afternoon mindlessly scrolling or checking my Feedly reader, I picked up a book and would read a chapter or three. Instant calm.
(b) FOMO – I’ve got to come to terms with the fact that if I don’t have social media on the phone I am WAY BEHIND THE TIMES – that is, I’m not up to speed with any new changes happening in my field, in Microsoft, new resources, nothing. I come to conversations late. They’ve been and moved on. I feel as if I lose my friends (albeit, friends I don’t really know that well anyway).
(c) I listen to my husband. I may not have attuned my ear to pick up his entire sentences to me but on the whole, it’s better than it was. He even mentioned a great idea last night and said after dinner that went something like this…
“Hey, do you know that the library is open until 9pm tonight?”
“What? No! Why do you want to go?” (My ears pricked up with library obviously).
“Sure, let’s go!”
Well that was out of the ordinary. I was out of my pyjamas (7:00pm) and into my clothes again and we were out the door.
Imagine our surprise when we rocked up to the library and saw it was CLOSED! Due to COVID the times had changed. We missed it by an hour.
We stood there like lost lambs. Disheartened. We had no words for a while. (It’s as if we were in shock that the library was closed).
“Shit, what’ll we do now?”
“Is there another library open nearby?” he asks.
“Nope, they’d have all the same hours.”
“Oh”, shoulders down. “Crap. I don’t feel like going home”
(You see as a long time married couple, we have no idea what is open after 6:30 pm in our local area. The feeling is too real when you have those times where you put yourself in heightened expectation of something happening, it doesn’t happen and then you’re all hyper to do something – anything). For the record, they’re usually the BEST nights because you tend to do something even more memorable.
“Look, why don’t we go to the RSL (Returned Services League) and go for a coffee and cake?” I ask. (I just wanted to see the Navy memorabilia on display).
He shrugs his shoulder.
So we went to the RSL and sat there drinking our coffees in front of the large screen showing the trots and the betting odds.
We watched the trots. We shared our cookie and cream cheesecake and lemon tart. We talked about the books we want to read and get from the library. He showed me the “little Keno (gambling) pencils that people steal to fill their golfing cards”.
“Cheapskates!” I added as I was spritzing my hands with sanitizer.
Then we went home.
I don’t know but I’m thinking having less of a distracted mind is already working. I can feel my neural network in my brain forming new pathways now and slowly going back to normal.
Best thing? Screen time reduced by 20% on the phone yesterday – hoping the number will increase over time.
I got this.
