You might have read my infamous first blog post about why I left social media. If you haven’t, do us all a favor and read it hereWelcome back! Now with all the information and opinions about the past, let’s dive deeper into the now and my updated standing on that topic, cause I am back on social media. ;) To be honest, I kinda felt like I needed to do a follow-up on this topic because I owe it to you. Right? Right.
I think I am an extreme person. I mean, I like to swing from one extreme to the other to be aware of my opinion about certain topics. Having social media as a daily connection to others and suddenly dropping that for almost a year showed me what I liked/disliked about this platform. Now I am more aware of why I am using it. My intention is more evident. I mean, don’t we all love a bit of clarity in our lives… :) I believe that distancing yourself from a situation can help to see everything more clearly and one is prone to make better decisions. This may not apply to everything but in this case, it did for me.
“But wait…Ray, what’s the deal? Why are you really back?” you might think. Well, the only reason is: to be found and connect easily - heavy on the easily.
In my previous blog post, I talked about connecting with people through different tools and ways and I still believe that those approaches can work. (I mean, I am still using those.) I just noticed that in the end, those other ways are more inconvenient, more time-consuming, require more work, etc. Do I have the time and energy to explain to others why I don’t use Instagram and try to convince people to check out my website? Lol, no. So yeah, the reason is: to be found and connect easily. Maybe conformity isn’t that bad. :)
Being back on social media feels different. I am not as into checking everyone as I was before. And let’s be real, generally speaking, the same people are doing the same thing. I didn’t really miss out on anything. Now, I use my social media as a portfolio. I rarely go online - maybe once every other day. I post important events rather than personal stuff. To be frank, I had many moments where I almost posted stories that were random and unimportant - just like a filler episode of an anime - if you know what I mean.
I am not back to prove myself, nor get validation or become an influencer (Although that might happen.) I enjoy my healthier relationship with social media and I am so happy that I disconnected from it because that kickstarted different things in my life, including this very blog and my newsletter. Also, if there is a need to help those in the matrix - I have to be part of the matrix too. And now feel free to switch out the matrix with words like family, ballroom, society, universe… Makes sense, huh?
Would I recommend you to deactivate your account? Hell yeah. But at the end of the day, you should know why you use social media and how it can help you and not distract you. Those rules I have mentioned above help me navigate through all that noise online. But I am not perfect at sticking to my rules. I sometimes break them but keep them to a minimum. This is an ongoing practice. As the Legendary Pusscee West said: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.”
How do you feel about social media right now? Has your relationship with it changed for the better? Do you think it is becoming more important to use such platforms? Wishing everyone a beautiful day and as always…
Keep on shining!
Ray