Social Media Detox
It’s important to take a mental health check regularly, and remove yourself from social media to detox. For the past week I’ve been MIA from my Instagram, absent from blog, and focused on my relationships with others in the real world.
But why?
We live our lives so deeply attached to technology that we can find ourselves feeling hopeless without it. Just like drugs or alcohol, we can get addicted to technology. We can become so dependent on our gadgets that without them we feel like we have lost a limb.
As I find the stability I’ve craved throughout my life with my upcoming marriage, saving up for a house, planning to have kids, and forging my career, I don’t want my use of social media to be an addiction but a passion. I want to continue to love using social media, not using it because I feel compelled to.
So I took the detox, flew to Melbourne with my friends, and breathed in the air outside - albeit cold Melbourne air.
During my detox, I reflected on my life, my future, and the obstacles I’ve encountered along the way to become the person I want to be. Below are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way:
We create our own future
We need to make an active effort in the things we really want from life. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and opportunities don’t usually fling themselves in our paths. We must forge our own paths in the soils of the Earth with the ferocity, and passion of a person fighting to live while an inch from death. If we do not try our hardest to get the future we want, it will always be partially our fault that we never received those opportunities given to those who provided more elbow grease.
2. You cannot please everyone, and not everyone will like you
You should not walk on eggshells your entire life to be careful to not step on anyone’s toes, nor should you kiss the feet of everyone in your way. You are not meant to be a “one size fits all” personality that must be liked by all, and in doing so, never doing anything you want for fear that others might not like you. You are a person who has a personality, a humour, an energy that does not have to be compatible with everyone else’s. People are different, and like different things (and people). What matters most is that you are true to who you really are, don’t try to hurt people, and are happy with who you are even when you’re alone.
3. Nobody can make you do anything, but decisions are also circumstantial
Really, nobody can make you do anything. They can affect your hand but at the end of the day, it is us who goes through with the action. When something happens in our life, we have had our part in what made it happen. However, our actions are based on the circumstances that they first occurred.
For example a man can steal a loaf of bread, and it is a crime. But if the man, and his family is starving as they cannot afford food, he is stealing that loaf for them to survive. If they had enough money, he probably wouldn’t steal food.
Knowing this is important because we must examine the actions others, and ourselves in context of why they really did it. This way we can better understand what is happening, and how we can act upon this knowledge with empathy instead of ignorance.
4. Lastly, we should work on ourselves, for ourselves but not necessarily by ourselves
At the end of the say, it is ourselves who has to live with our decisions. In order to truly feel the satisfaction of real happiness, we must love others. I fully advocate for being an independent person who can get up in the morning to live their life happy with their actions but we shouldn’t feel we need to work on ourselves alone. What is a life if there aren’t people around to live it with?
What life lesson have you learnt through the years? Share with us all in the comments section xx