Social Media

There are people who can’t seem to live without it, and there are many who cannot seem to live with it, either.

I have been, and am, both of these people.  I have found myself losing hours to mindless scrolling instead of going to bed or getting ready in the morning.  I have found myself surfing down rabbit holes I didn’t know existed and producing anxiety that wasn’t there before.  I have definitely compared myself to every other fit chick all over IG to the perception that I have of Alison and what she might look like today.  On the contrary, I have also found myself not online at all for years at a time, respecting my need for privacy and my inability to stop looking for reasons to fuck myself.

As with most things, it turns out that there is a balance.  Now, I keep my notifications off on all accounts.  I re-opened an IG account so I could draw people to my work and promote my intentions, but know that I have to be very careful in looking through feeds and too many ab and beautifully shaped hamstring photos or else the walls start closing in.  I maintain a FB account that I also re-opened for business purposes to promote the anti-aging and wellness line that I use and now keep an account because it keeps me updated.  I use LinkedIN every single work day in my professional life.

As with most things, I wouldn’t have a balance or an appreciation for what I can and cannot handle if I didn’t pause first. I wouldn’t know the grey if I didn’t first investigate the black and white.  I wouldn’t know how much time I actually spent online until the option was removed.  I wouldn’t know how little business I minded until I removed everyone else’s that they posted for me to see.  I wouldn’t know how badly I tended to feel about myself until I stopped looking at everybody else.  I didn’t know what I didn’t know, until I knew.

I am grateful to my ex who made such a tidal wave of his personal life (and my attachment to it) that prompted my exiting the social media world for some time.  I was able to regroup and re-center and really learn who was on my team, and who wasn’t.  I learned how sacred a real phone conversation can be and how easy it is to just pick up the phone and ask the people I cared about most how they were doing.  I saw how social media was no substitution for a relationship, and thinking that I knew someone based on the frequency and content of their varied posts was not real.  I learned how susceptible I am to the images burned into my eyes of what the world thinks an athlete should look like, and how incredible some of those blessed athletes are.  I intimately felt how sensitive I am, and how I used to derive my worth from how many likes and comments I received on the near naked posts I’d make when I was competing.  

We can’t get by without social media anymore.  It boosts businesses and helps their marketing strategies.  It easily connects people all over the world with one click of a key, and allows people to show up in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise feel comfortable.   I have met people at events through FB that I wouldn’t ever meet on my own, and have found things to do that I wouldn’t know were happening.  I have been able to maintain some semblance of distant contact for the select few I wish to remain aware of and promote what I believe to be a true calling for me, while I can also follow people who inspire and help me.

Like most of the lessons I’ve learned in my life, I don’t learn from the better experiences (at first), but the ones that cause me to stop and look and try again.  May this be a reminder to put our phones down (after reading this, of course), and pay attention to the person across from you.  Even if that person is you most of the time, I have found that that person is the one that deserves our attention the most.