No phone or social media for two weeks. Now while I felt lost at times without connecting to the world, I was grateful for the withdrawal. I discovered that I allow people and things to dictate what makes me happy. When no one else is around, all I have is God and my notebook.
I think people started to get the point that I didn’t want to be bothered when my phone went to voicemail or when they texted and I didn’t respond. It wasn’t personal toward any specific person. It was toward people in general. You may not be that one person that everyone depends on. But I am. I never realized what a hinderance it was until I took the break. So here’s some observations I made from silence:
1. If people don’t hear from you, they forget how to track you down as they did when they NEEDED something. It just shows that some people only call you when they want something from you. They take that opportunity to talk about you. They tell everyone else how there is something wrong with you but forget that there’s nothing wrong with you when they don’t have a problem accessing you.
2. People use your social media against you. While I didn’t post, there were a few people who almost freaked out because they couldn’t keep tabs on me. So, they took it as me being stuck up in not openly dishing out my life on social media. If you post something political, you’re now labeled as this political weirdo. If you post a bunch of inspirational quotes, you’re labeled as this religious freak. If you post a load of photos with your new boo, you’re too happy. If you don’t post photos with your new boo, you’re labeled as lonely or bitter. You just can’t win.
3. No one truly cares how good you are doing. What they really want to know is how bad you are doing. If it’s not juicy drama or really inappropriate posts, it’s overlooked. Did she break up with her boyfriend? Is she lonely? She’s too angry for me. She’s weird. Who is he messing with? They seem close but he has all these other girls posting on his page so they must not be together. Maybe sometimes, I just had a bad day. That doesn’t mean my life is horrible and your can feed off that.
I’ve taken this a a learning experience in keeping silent in some areas. It seems a little easier to recognize those people who only love you when you can do for them. But it’s a little more difficult to keep a balance between being transparent and giving too much information for leeches to feed on.
~Am I N_MY_WRITE_MIND?
nmywritemind 