Every now and again I like to talk a little mess about social media.
And it’s not because Facebook lied to me or because it apparently makes teenagers not want to have secks anymore (which would be an odd argument in favor of it, actually).
And I don’t crusade against it, or judge people who are interested in what my gramma had for brunch on Saturday with the ladies.
Because I realize it has a lot of benefits and a lot of good things come out of it for a lot of people.
My favorite being the ability to market yourself/ your business from the palm of your hand.
But I like to bring a little awareness to the social-media-free zone every once in a while, only because I’ve found it to be a pretty good life.
I didn’t quit social media suddenly, or with any announcements, or with any inspirational post about the new life I intended to embark upon.
I didn’t even realize I wanted to “quit social media.”
I sort of just slipped away quietly into the shadows, gradually, deleting one account at a time, until finally I deleted my last account.
Reason being, I started becoming annoyed with myself after realizing I just spent another 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or 2 hours scrolling and searching and “liking” things that often made me feel anxious or impatient or dissatisfied afterward.
And I realize now that the lines between who you are and who your Instagram tagline says you are can get blurry.
Your photos, likes, shares…whatevers can keep you confined to a certain identity with heaps of social pressure piled on top of it which you have to maintain, manage, and track.
And that makes it difficult to give yourself the courtesy of some quiet reflection, and creating your own dreams, vision, and self-identity.
It’s hard to even know what your goals are unless you spend the time to do that – away from everyone else – where you can really “listen” to yourself and think your own thoughts without any outside influence or disruption to your process.
And also, when you don’t have access to what other people are doing (or appear to be doing vis a vis their pics from the bar last night), there’s zero influence on you to compare yourself or try to become like someone else’s image – which really is just an image.
The big benefit, for me at least, to living a more quiet life, where I am working away on my craft in secret, is not just the ability to focus on my goals and get more done, but also to simply know myself better and set aside enough time to dream and envision the life I want, and to understand the goals I need to set and accomplish in the first place that will take me there.
And guess what: there are still ways to market your business, services, and products, from the palm of your hand, without using any social media, which I am learning more about to implement in my own business, and which I will be sharing more about with you soon.
So let me wrap this up by encouraging you to become your own Henry David fuh-kin Thoreau of the internet, isolated around your own private Walden pond.
And if you decide to cling to your social media accounts, I get it, and make sure you tell my gramma hello.
But don’t say you never heard about a new type of fulfillment life can bring you when you let that shee-it go.
Paul Denni
paul@denni.biz
P.S. Don’t let go of your chance to prep your gramma for the ever-impending future: