Lent
(Latin: Quadragesima: Fortieth)
is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar that begins on Ash
Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later, before Easter Sunday. The
purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, doing penance,
repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement, and self-denial. In Lent, many
Christians commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxuries as a form
of penance. Many Christians also add a Lenten spiritual discipline, such as
reading a daily devotional or praying through a Lenten calendar, to draw
themselves near to God
So for a while I’ve been pondering killing off
all of my social media, from Twitter, to Facebook, to Instagram, all of it has
become too damn much. I wake up in the mornings and check it, I scroll through
my timeline before shutting everything off and going to bed and all it’s doing
is stressing me out. So I’ve decided instead of going cold turkey and killing
it off all together I’m going to take a break. I’ve decided that I’m giving up
Social Media for Lent.
I’ve created this very social thing that has
recently been used to tear things down, to bitch about things we can’t control,
and to complain about it all. I recently went through my follow list on Twitter
and killed off some of the negativity but it’s still very powerful and all in
my face more than I’d like. Yes before you send me a thousand messages there is
some positivity on the net right now, like the hospice worker who sings to his
patient, free music, free food… and kids, kids are always adorable.
However right now the negative aspects of Social media are out weighing the
positive.
So I’m walking away. From March 1st through April 15th
I’m done. I’m turning off all notifications, I’m deleting the aps from my phone
and I will see you all on the other side. My life is not to the point where I can't not check my e-mail so if you need me and know that address …. Feel free to contact
me.
This is truly a sacrifice because I mostly use
Social Media to keep up with people, like Golden and my favorite musicians,
sports figures and my family but I just …. Need a break from everything else.
From the republican VS democrat BS … from the media vs the President BS....., from my cause is more important than your cause...... and of
course the Presidential BS in general. I just need to walk away.
I’ve never really “given up” anything for
Lent, so here’s hoping I can make this work. I hate it tho cause on March 10th
I’m going to Auburn for a Gymnastics meet with a friend of mine, my nephew will
be inducted into the National Junior Honor Society, and some things at my new Church that
I hope to help out with like the annual Easter Egg hunt and Bible School for
the little ones. These are all things that I would post about, but hopefully by
doing this “break” I’ll be more present in these things and enjoy them more. I
have recently been told that I often overlook how my actions affect the people
around me, and part of that is that I’m more connected to the people who live
on my social media feeds than the people who live in my everyday world. I’ve
decided that focusing on my everyday world people more would make my everyday
world better cause there’s not a lot about my social media world that I feel I can
control anymore.
So I’ll see you guys on the other side, maybe I’ll
put that social media energy into this blog, maybe I won’t… frankly I’m looking
forward to unplugging and see what happens.
Have a great few weeks and take care of yourselves
out there and if someone could … check in on @theonlygolden every once in a
while for me!
Thanks
Marcy (@beaslma)
FWIW, my therapist (an accredited and licensed professional!) advised this for me some time back for anxiety. It helped.
ReplyDeletethanks That's part of why i'm doing it. Glad to hear it helped, hope you are doing better now. Thanks for reading! :D
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