Easily Distracted

As some of you may know I deactivated my Facebook account for a few months because it was becoming too distracting. I would try to convince myself that I would only go online for a few minutes just to see what everyone was up to, and lo and behold an hour had past and what I had planned for that moment never got done. I was never this easily distracted pre-social media. I used to read 2 books a month, but now I'm lucky to read 2 every six months. I would start to read and my mind would wonder elsewhere. I would find myself having to re-read each chapter because I was constantly being distracted or just couldn't focus. Watching a long movie has been a struggle as well. I just can't stay focused long enough to watch the whole movie in one sitting. I either get up from the couch to start a task I had forgotten to do earlier, or I'm looking at my notifications from Facebook.

Deactivating my facebook account was very hard for the first week, and I started to spend more time on Pinterest and Instagram. After that week went by I found that I was able to focus more on myself which I've needed to do for sometime. Not in a narcissistic way, but sometimes we get so caught up in what everyone else is doing we tend to neglect ourselves. Taking the time to just sit and read a good book is not only relaxing, but stimulates the mind so you can focus. Hobbies. Remember those? I used to have so many of them. Making door wreathes, floral arraignments, jewelry, gardening, photography, and even sewed a little. I was a very crafty person before living the social media obsession. I even dusted off some old paint brushes and painted a picture of a tree while I was offline. Of course after watching a Bob Ross marathon.Time seemed to slow down when I didn't spend all my spare time on Facebook. I didn't feel the need to check in when I went out to eat, or even let facebook know what I was doing over the weekend. I felt like my old self again.

Until...I just had to take a peek. Just for a few minutes. I knew no one would notice. I didn't even look at my news feed for the first hour. I looked through my photo's and felt a little narcissistic when I saw how many profile pics I had posted, so I deleted all but two. I went through my albums and personal photos of family and deleted most of them as well, and wondered why I was so public with my private life. I removed my last name and typed in my blogger name. I decided I would use my account mostly for blogging. Then I went to my families pages one by one to see if I missed anything, and I didn't really miss much, which made me happy that they still kept in touch even though I was off facebook for a while. Then I went to my news feed, and guess what? It was like I never left. Same stuff, different day. Did I really expect facebook to stop because I left? No, of course not, and that few minute peek turned into all day. I even got several "welcome back" comments when I posted my first profile pic in 3 months. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Will I ever leave facebook for good? Probably not, but I've learned that taking a break every once in awhile will do me good.