A time for change

What would your life be like without social media?

I've been asking myself this question a lot lately.

I personally have a love-hate relationship with social media.

I love it because it inspires me. It allows me to discover places I would have never otherwise known about, and it connects me to people I may have lost touch with or new people I've never met or met once and connected with.

But the other side of the coin is much darker.

I have the terrible problem of comparing my life to others. It has been all too easy for me to be envious of others; to feel like my life is in shambles when the reality is so many people have it much worse and would love to be in my position. I need to learn to be grateful for the life I have and not what I don't have.

I also have utilized social media as a means of feeling better about my life through "likes" rather than learning to love my life on its own. To love myself without the gratification from others…

Both in and outside of social media, I've let people dictate how I feel about myself and my own life.

Sometimes it's being told things like "can you shut up?" or "you're too emotional" or "you're too loud" or "too hyper". Sometimes it's by telling me how I should be or what I need to change about myself. And some things I've simply felt or told myself by comparing my life to others—which is ,more often than not, enabled by social media.

I've ignored this issue for a long time because it's easy to go from feeling bad about myself and my life to feeling better about it within the realm of Facebook and Instagram—again, at least for me. I present my best self even when I'm sometimes falling apart. All because it makes me feel better.

And so, I've never dealt with the underlying issue that I still don't love who I am.

There are times that I do and many times that I don't. Over and over again, I have apologized—unnecessarily—to people for being who I am because I felt like I annoyed them or bothered them or was a hindrance. And that's something that I am going to stop.

I am who I am and if you don't like it then I need to learn to tell you to fuck off rather than apologize for being who I am.

In order to do that though, I need to love who I am, and the reality is that I don't. Ultimately, all I am doing is wasting precious time I'll never get back when I'm not loving myself and my life.

Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony”, and for me, they never have been, but it's about time I worked on fixing that.

With that being said, it's time to take a break from Facebook and Instagram to learn how to love myself and my life without the gratification of others and rather from within myself. I don't know how long it will be, but my intention is at least 6 months. However, I still want to keep in touch with so many of you.

So, if we often talk—or even if we don't—please send me your number or a way to contact you if I don't have one already. I'd love to reconnect with those I have lost touch and only seem to keep in contact through "likes" and of course those I speak with regularly.

This may have been a completely unnecessary post, but I felt i needed to share it to be truly honest with not only you, but myself. Hopefully I'll be able to stay in contact with many of you (which will take a little more effort that a facebook or instagram like).

Kaitlyn