Giving Up Social Media

For this month I have decided to give up social media! 

I have decided that social media is not benefiting my life at this moment. It has in the past and I'm almost sure that I will get back to it once this month is over just not as much.

No one thing happened to make me make this choice. I have been struggling with figuring out some things in my life. I keep getting motivated and then sucked back into my awful routine of life. And then I'll get motivated again and then some times one day sometimes a week later I'm back to my normal routine.

But two nights ago I was reading the Bible to the boys before bed like we always do and it spoke to me and to Monkey.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1 John 2:15-17

Monkey was asking me questions about why we can't love the world and wanting clarification on this verse. So I tried my best to explain that there is a lot of evil in the world and that we are not to love that part of the world. We are to love God and seek out His will for our life and love his people which means our family and friends. I are still trying to teach stranger safety so I didn't get into loving those people we don't know. 

After we said prayers and I kissed my boys goodnight. I came out to have some vegging time before bed and got right on my tablet to Facebook. I started reading when I found this post. That post lead me to keep reading the links she shared in post after post after post. I started thinking about these posts and how much they relate to the 1 John scripture. I hold on to everything! My boys have enough toys that I could open a full daycare and not need anything! I have piles of paperwork all over my desk and the floor surrounding it. I have boxes that I have yet to unpack from our move in July because I have no where else to put anything. I have stuff shoved in corners of closets and trying to use every inch of space we have in out "little" 1100 square foot home. This should be plenty of space for four people! (Sorry I'm getting off the subject, this is another post)

So thinking down this path I started to consider what I can do in my life to live a life more for God and less for the world. How could I simplify my life and create a better environment for myself, my boys, and my husband?

Well I needed to downsize. I needed to get rid of things. I needed to get more accomplished during the day. I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone and start letting go of things of this world. 

Where to start? I needed to take a really close look at where my time was going. Of course I can't cut down any of the time I'm already putting into my family or caring for the house. I need to continue to work on my doTerra business to bring in money at least to cover my monthly expenses on essential oils. I need to nurture the relationships I have through my mom's group and continue to be present at events. And of course I couldn't stop on my health goal of losing weight. 

So what did that leave? 

Screen time. That means time wasted on the computer, phone, tablet, and TV. When I really looked at how much time I was truly spending on this it was hard to believe. I needed to decide what part of my screen time I was going to give up. Social media seemed to be the best answer. It's so easy to just quickly click the app on my phone or tablet just to "check" Facebook or Twitter and then next thing I knew it would be 20 minutes later as I was reading friends post, blog posts, and news. Not all bad things but when I am doing this several time a day that's a lot of time wasted. So my twitter account I shut down. I hardly ever use it so I don't know why I have it. I started an Instagram account but haven't even touched it so that one is going to be gone too. Facebook I couldn't bring myself to delete but I'm taking a month long break from it to break the habit of wasting time on there. I will still write on my blog and would love it if you would share posts that you love with your friends. I will still be checking email and I will even indulge in TV but with restrictions. Only when the boys are in bed and after I have accomplished things throughout the day.

So far just one day in I'm struggling with what to do when I don't feel like doing anything. I'm sick and not sleeping well, Aunt Flow is visiting, and I just have no motivation to get moving today and I want to just sit on the couch and not do anything. But because I don't have anything to do to suck up the time I end up getting up and doing things. It's been playing with the boys, moving a few things around to make us more successful as a family, reading a little bit in a book, and writing this post. I might be struggling with wanting a waste time but not having that easy access to something is sure making me realize what I was missing out on before. 

Have you ever given up social media? I'd love to hear about your experience in the comments!

One last note. I deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone and tablet, logged out on my computer so it wouldn't alert me to any notifications, and I deleted the games from my tablet because I knew that I would get sucked into wasting time there too. I will update you with how I'm doing throughout the month!

**So I have decided to quickly jump on to Facebook after I write a post and quickly share it. I will not read anything else just post and sign out again. Please leave comments here if you have anything you'd like to share!