Letting go…ever so slowly

Today is the second consecutive day of staying away from the world of Facebook.  I had decided that I was spending way too much of my waking day glued to the computer or FB phone app, so I decided to start weening myself from it.  Yesterday morning after I had posted my two inspirational readings for the day, I vowed not to log on again for the remainder of the day.

I multiple times was scrolling across my cell phone screen and very nearly keyed the FB icon…several times I started to hit the bookmarked tab on my computer.  But each time I reminded myself of the pledge I had made at the beginning of the day and followed through with staying away.

The phone icon didn’t help matters a lot, with the number inside the orange circle telling me how many notifications had gone unnoticed…climbing ever so slowly from five to ten to the eventual thirty-one I had received by day’s end.  My mind played all types of tricks on me in attempt to get me to give in:  “What if it’s a really important FB email from a friend that needs my immediate attention?” I would ask myself.

I found as the day went on that the desire to log in to my FB account got less and less. It was finally around seven p.m. that I reasoned I was going to be able to fulfill my pledge and not log in for the day.  I had made it through the first day without accessing that social media account.

I will admit that I checked in to my Instagram account and did post several pictures…I even look at Pinterest and created a few pins there, but for the most part I was able to stay away from social media for the day.

Now I’ve made it half-way through the second day of my self-imposed FB sanction.  I see the notifications are starting to build – I have ten thus far.  And I really wanted to take a picture of my granddaughter at lunch to post to my page,,,but the temptation was not enough to make me go back on my word.

You never truly realize how much of a stronghold something or someone has on you until you consciously decide to do without it for a while.  I’m thinking this will get easier as time goes on and that I’ll be able to use that time formerly spent in the alternate reality world of social media to do something much more productive.  For right now, I’m just getting used to doing without.

David Lee