I made a decision recently to go off Facebook. Not just take a hiatus or a snooze from it but to delete my account and not make it a part of my everyday life. I have been one full day away from it and while I miss some of the connections most of them I realized were frivolous and kept me away from the work of my heart and soul.
I found myself waking up in the morning and over coffee, instead of writing in my journal or listening to meditation music, I would pour through my Facebook account. Over time, many posts became shares of meme's instead of people's own thoughts or photos. Less actual photos, more images that I would end up seeing over and over again because people seemed to share the same thing. I felt like I needed to keep up in so many ways, but then I would see people in person (like work associates) and the false hood of an actual friendship would be there as we exchange our daily pleasantries but we all went our own ways for our work.
After a while, the thin veil of friendship on Facebook becomes exposed and a false sense of friendship security shows up. Not in any malicious way...but I found that I would constantly be putting out there my happy and positive side, and couldn't express that shadow side that true friends are privy too. Not that everyone needs to know about one's shadow sides; however, isn't one of the true gifts of living to integrate your external and internal worlds where you show up how you are? I think so. So in my Facebook free life, my intention is to spend the time I would be checking it writing letters to friends, sending thoughtful texts, making a phone call to someone I hadn't spoken to in a while, sitting quietly, writing, and working on my own creative endeavors. I decided to keep Instagram because photography is one of my most great loves, and I like that I can create a beautiful portfolio of my favorite photos. I also realized I could spend any time on my work breaks I might spend checking Facebook maybe writing in my Blog, which I don't do quite as often as I would like. I love my Blog for what it brings me, the ability to write and post pictures and just be creative. I am happy to dive back into this venue again.
I was reminded recently of the beautiful work Desiderata by Max Ehrmann and it started to get me thinking more and more about going into the forest of my soul and getting lost in there, finding what truly makes me, well, me...who I am at my core and what I want to bring into this world. And so I plan to "Go Placidly Among the Noise and Haste and Remember What Peace There May Be in Silence".
