Unnecessary Noise

I have typed and re-typed the first sentence of this post a billion times. Ridiculous if you ask me, because I'm getting on here to say one simple thing.

As of tomorrow, I am putting myself in time-out as far as social media is concerned.

It's time.

It's beyond time.

I know I don't owe this post to anybody, because who really cares that I'm about to unplug, but I'm writing it for myself. And more than that, I'm writing it for accountability.

Social media is a big umbrella, but I am specifically unplugging from twitter and facebook.

Why? Because I'm ashamed at how many hours I waste browsing each of those websites.

I could take or leave Pinterest. And my blog? Well, apparently it's not been a distraction lately as you can see by my lack of posting, but facebook and twitter? They monopolize my time more than anything. Someone asked if that meant email, but email is a must. I had to ask myself what brought me the most distraction and stole most of my time, and what really was entertainment. Email is far from entertaining to me. Recently I've been so thankful for the fact that these things didn't exist in high school, and really, until later in college, because if I would have had facebook as a high school student, I'm not sure I would have graduated.

This has been a long time coming and I've fought the conviction, but I told somebody today that if I really didn't want to give it up, it was probably a sure sign that I needed to.

Why am I so attached to it anyway? Am I that afraid I am going to miss something? Disappoint my "followers" or friends? Are my only connections happening online? What am I trying to promote or secure? These are just a few questions I've had to ask myself. Because let's face it, twitter is flat out fun sometimes.

The truth is, there is a lot on my plate right now and I feel like I can't focus on one thing well. And when I can't focus, I resort to the most mindless things like facebook and twitter.

However, I was most convicted about it last night when I was writing in my personal journal. There are a few things I'm asking the Lord to give me clarity on and immediately after writing them out I thought to myself, how can I hear the Lord clearly when there is so much noise in my world? So much unnecessary noise that I used to not even have to fight against. Somethings gotta give. Something has to be eliminated, at least for a little bit.

It just so happens that tomorrow begins this Lent season and no other time than now seems appropriate.

So beginning tomorrow morning, I will deactivate my facebook and delete my twitter app.

Although I'm really fighting it, I already have a sense of peace. Will it be hard? No doubt. I'm a very social girl who loves social media. But the exchange will be so much sweeter.

I'm already looking forward to the books I plan on reading, the face-to-face dates I plan on having, the fun texts and the phone calls to friends. You see, when you're not consistently hooked up to the social world, you have to do those things to keep up with your friends, just like the old days. Doesn't that sound lovely?

I've made up every excuse in the book to keep these two outlets going, but I've run out of clever excuses. In fact, I happen to run the facebook page at work and even that made me second guess my decision, but thankfully, the Lord made me smarter than I am and I've got that all worked out, too.

Who knows, maybe this here blog will see a little more action since I won't be wasting my random thoughts elsewhere.

I know for a fact I will see the goodness of the Lord. When it's all said and done, He really is better.