Let me rewind a bit...I recently decided to back off from social media. Not entirely, as cold turkey doesn’t always pan out, but more or less “portion-control” when and how I use social media. As you know from our blog, we consider ourselves minimalists. We purge various areas of our lives regularly and follow others who have done the same. Recently, I’ve come across some podcasts that have talked about social media and the “twitch” that it induces, along with the barriers it creates.
With the start of August, I decided to sign out of the apps on my phone and hide them in a folder. That way, I can still access them if I feel the need, but out of sight, out of mind. This forced me to be intentional with my time on the various platforms. The first day, I logged on once from a computer, checked notifications, looked at the first couple of posts in my newsfeed, and logged off. Since then, I really haven’t even had the desire to get back on and it’s only the second day.
Today, I decided to put in earbuds and tune into a podcast while going for a walk around downtown. That is where I came across a fountain that I had never seen before. Right smack dab in the middle of town. It’s not much, and doesn’t even flow very well, but it was shaded by a large tree and between that and the cool breeze, I decided to sit and just be for a while. It was a much needed pause in the middle of my hectic day.
The moral here is I was able to sit there and just enjoy the space and the moment. No likes, no comments, no useless information. Just absorbing and basking in the time and space in which I was in. That’s what we miss when we’re distracted by digital pacifiers. While I was there today, my phone never left my pocket, except to take a picture of my mid-day discovery so I could capture the moment in which I enjoyed just existing, and nothing more.
