I cannot believe I have come so far. I took a self-made Facebook challenge to stay away for a week. My week ended this past Sunday at 2pm, but I didn't realize I hit the mark until a couple of hours later. After that, I figured I had made it and I could log on anytime, but then I didn't. It felt strange. All the facts that motivated me to stay on Facebook and to check status' constantly were suddenly irrelevant.
I had always told myself that I was on Facebook for the great articles or for the motivational memes, but then I would find myself swimming in this sea of psychosis. The public forum of people bragging about themselves, or sharing too much, or too little or making irresponsible comments and the culture of likes and throwback Thursdays and basically the culture of being imprisoned by social media. In a culture of attention seeking individuals, somehow you get to the comparison of lives and who's better than who and who did what and the constant ego parade. Then you get into the smearing of people's happiness and sadness that you may not want to partake of constantly.
You see the anniversary posts that make you want to throw up and say "get a room!" The posts that basically go, "to my best friend, my lover, my wonderful soul mate who completes my life..." are you throwing up yet? "To my every thing, you have been wonderful and accepted me for who I am and for my faults, and I love you and we've had a great X number of years together and I can't wait for more and ... " I get it. Marriages are hard. Getting through the years is a celebration. Those heart wrenching speeches that you want to tell your spouse, should be told to your spouse and your spouse only. The world doesn't want to know and we could care less. The person who should get the message should get it in person from your own lips, not reading it through Facebook in such a public forum. Don't get me wrong. I was quite wrapped in it that I didn't know myself anymore. I couldn't understand self without understand Facebook and that is a very sad state of affairs. An illusion of friends that don't exist and throwing real friends in that same pool.
I haven't gone back yet. I plan to, but not like an everyday thing or an every moment thing. I'm still enjoying my time off and figuring out the new rules of returning. I need to define for myself the reasons I left and I need to address them adequately before returning. I also need to be honest about why I stayed for so long and what I truly did enjoy during that time. There is, of course, the X-ing of friends. Yes! That's going to be important for me. I'm thinking as I write this that I should make a list of friends that I need to de-face and move on. I use the word "friends" loosely. These are Facebook friends I'm thinking about deleting. We need to realize the difference between "friends" and "Facebook friends".
I once heard someone say that it doesn't matter unless it's on Facebook. I do understand the power of Facebook. I also understand its evils. With great power, comes great responsibility. My thought: Use Facebook responsibly!
Best wishes,
TTR
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