"Goodbye Facebook", Part 2

I always wonder if my words come off as arrogant.

There's a fine line between confidence and pride. Sometimes the line is difficult to find.

When I state my opinion, I try to do so gently, while emphasizing that it is my personal thoughts or ideas or interpretation. There's no omniscience here, ya know! I do believe in absolute truth, however, which is a much more tricky subject and one that I won't talk about right now.

It's so easy to accidentally offend or hurt others. When I take a stand for something I believe in, I'm not deliberately trying to offend anyone.

Writing about leaving Facebook was hard. I knew that some would probably read my post and think I was saying that EVERYONE should leave Facebook RIGHT NOW. Or that some would consider me to be prideful in thinking that I'm "so good" for leaving Facebook, that I was giving off a kind of holier-than-thou attitude. Or that I was implying that Facebook is evil. Or that I'm leaving Facebook and never coming back.

None of that is true.

For me, right now in my life, the best decision was the one I made: to take a break from a social media outlet.

Ten years ago, I created a Myspace profile. It was a strange new world of connections. I had only learned how to type a few years before that. There were a few friends who had email accounts, and we quickly learned how to instant message on AOL (remember that?), post on message boards, and search for information. We would play computer games occasionally, like an interactive math whiz game, or Oregon Trail. When the first Lord of the Rings movie came out, we were thrilled to find online "Which LOTR Character Are You?" quizzes to take, and we would giggle excitedly to find out that we were elves or rangers.

Back then, the internet didn't dominate my life. Or anyone's life (that I know of). Over the years, the online access and stuff you could do with the internet has grown to encompass almost every area of life. Now you can look up a recipe, directions to a friend's house, a business number, a science fact, the local news, the nearest gas station, and on and on and on. It's hard to NOT be online!

But I know that I'm happier when I have more time away from the computer. For ME, that is the right decision.

If you are happy with your internet usage, then that's great! Don't change anything! Don't feel guilted into doing something just because someone else thinks it's a good idea. This is a completely personal choice for each person to make on their own.

And yes, it's been weird not being on Facebook. Maybe I'll write about that sometime.

In the meantime, I'm hoping for snow, watching Harmony almost crawl, finishing reading "The Hobbit" aloud with Chris, cooking Chinese Beef with rice for dinner, and drinking raspberry tea with lemon. We had a beautifully crazy warm day this weekend while my sister visited, so we all went to the park and played on the playground.

Playground

Laughing and playing!