Balance & my Phone

Everyone has a phone, but mine is literally my mini best friend. She finds all the best memes, shows, and cute gifs to send my friends. I swear why would I even need to look around, and read books? But.. I have noticed that real books are so good too, it sounds crazy but when you can pull out your nook and just read what's the point. Real life is so amazing though, the flowers, mountains, the real pages, hot lattes, iced matchas, walks, yoga, gossiping. It's amazing, but how can we truly experience it if we are so indulged in our cell phones?

I do think there is a solution, SIMPLY PUTTING IT DOWN.

Read a nice book, do your homework without music, go take a short walk, and leave your phone at home. Meet someone in a coffee shop, and let your brain have some original thoughts. Our brains are storing all this information about what our friend from second grade did for their mom's birthday, and then we wonder why we can't use flash cards. It's amazing what our cell phones can do for us, but it is even more amazing what your brain can do for you. When you put your head through puzzles, hard conversations, lectures, etc.

We are meant to be intricate, and we are so unique. We don't realize how many things we do just because we see it on social media, we think it's cool to be like everyone else. But in many ways, being okay with the boringness makes you realize, dang I needed a nap!

I had been experiencing so much burnout, terrible sleep, and losing connections with family & friends. It might not seem so serious to some people but I started to monitor my screen time and it was racking up about 11 hours a day on a regular basis. So I took some actions to make a change in my behavior.

- I started to limit my phone use to texts, calls, and school work only.

- Deleted my unnecessary social media accounts.

- I stopped watching YouTube on my phone.

- I left my phone in the car while I shopped or went to class.

Super Helpful and has got my screen time down to 3 hours on average per day.

Ever since I started making an effort to lower my screen time, my house has been cleaner because I'm not scrolling on my phone all the time. I have had time to make more art, more videos, and hang out with my family and friends. It has made a significant increase overall if I were to admit it. Another huge outcome that came with, was an attitude change. I feel a lot more peaceful and not so antsy all the time. I think I was always checking my phone to see if I had new notifications if I had a new message, or a response to a reel I sent. But after getting over the grief of deleting my apps you get used to it and no longer expect the notifications. It is like a breakup, which sounds crazy but if you want to see it, I'd say there's no harm in just trying it for yourself.

This is truly one of those things where you just have to see for yourself because it truly does depend on your personality, lifestyle, and beliefs. I know people who do social media as a job or get their news and education from technology. This is not saying our phones our evil, because they are definitely a tool to make our lives a walk in the park. It does not go to those people who already have balance because that is a trait that is installed within them.

After experiencing this kind of change for myself and the positive changes it has led in my life it has led me to advocate this to my friends and other people that I feel like I might be struggling with social media and indulging in it so much. Sometimes it's hard for us to realize that it might not be as bad as other things but it still doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a certain level of balance that comes with using it, too much of anything can be a bad thing. We should realize this with everything in our lives. There is something so sweet about romanticizing your life and realizing that you only have one go with this thing. How are we going to waste it looking at a screen that's only showing us a version of our life that we wish we could be living nothing will ever be that perfect. When you're on a walk and you go to the coffee shop and you bring your laptop and you're sitting outside listening to people gossiping the cars passing by and the birds chirping you'll never get that same moment again. And there is true beauty inside of that knowing that you'll never be able to experience that peace and serenity on social media.

Putting your phone down when you're with your family and friends also shows them how important and special they are to you, when you don't put your phone down and you're constantly texting someone or on your phone while you're with them it makes him feel annoyed and unimportant because you can't simply pay attention to what they have to say. That can ruin connections and make people feel like you don't care about maintaining them in your life. There's more to go into when it comes to our actions and the consequences that come with them. But that doesn't have to be such a bittersweet statement because there's always something that we can do to make a change if we really feel that strong about it and that's the good thing about human will and our nature to change things.

Who knows what talents you may discover, or the people you might meet. There could be countless opportunities and beauty if we start looking for it.