I was sitting at my dining room table the other day when I looked down and saw a Cheerio on the floor. It got me to thinking how long it had been since I had Cheerios, which led me to think that maybe it was time I cleaned my house.
That is, for better or worse, typical of how I decide it is time to do some cleaning. Things slowly accumulate until one day, for reasons I still can’t fathom, I look around and see how dirty everything has gotten. That isn’t, obviously, how it works. Unless you’re tracking in mud or cleaning a deer, dirt happens much like life, gradually and evenly. Certainly there are times when it comes out of nowhere and makes its presence known, mud tracking when it comes to dirt, car accident or something similar in life, but in general, it’s always just there, slowly becoming part of our life until it becomes too much of it.
It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of weeks as I have been looking at my life and working to clean my metaphysical “house.” There has been nothing traumatic that has happened, nothing that suddenly pulled blinders from my eyes. Only just the gradual accumulation until I looked around at how I was living, or not, in some cases, and how there was a lot more in my “house” than I needed or wanted to be there. So much of it can accumulate without being noticed, and in my case, I took it in subconsciously and found ways to accommodate it. The problem with this is the equivalent of wandering a path in the woods and, coming to a tree blocking the way, instead of finding a way over, around, or through it, you simply decide to take a different path, one that may or may not actually be there, telling yourself you’ll get back on the original path soon enough. (Spoiler alert: you won’t.)
If it had been something big and dramatic, I might find the need to have help with the cleaning: find a therapist, join a support group, something like that. But all it is is just life, and a series of not even wrong turns, but just idle detours. The truth is I know there is a better way to lead my life; I just need to start doing it again. To that end, I’m going to be stepping away from social media for a while.
I know that may sound asinine, what with the new book freshly out, but let’s face it. I didn’t exactly set the world on fire with books 1-7 via social media, so I don’t think it’s going to much affect book 8. There will be things I miss, most prominently the support I have from so many friends around the country and world (and, to a lesser extent, being able to wish all of you a happy birthday,) and some people might think I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face, but among many other things, I am vain, whiny, and impatient.
For me to clean my house, one of the things I need to do is stop looking into other people’s homes, and that is ultimately what most of social media is. I can’t allow myself to compare myself with others, to fret about what I think I might be missing, to whine about how successful other people seem to be living and why am I doing it so badly. I’ve had a thought that’s been percolating in my head the last several days, and I’m sure that once I finally put it into solid words, it was the catalyst for me to recognize the time for change:
I constantly worry about letting other people down, but if I am not true to myself, I am letting myself down. And if I am doing that, I will only, always let other people down, regardless of my actions.
So, there you have it. In the next couple of days, I will be putting my social media apps on hiatus. I’m not sure for how long, only that it will be long enough. And, no, this is not an elaborate cry for help. In many ways I’m in a better place than I am used to, and I think some of that is what is helping me understand the ways I can continue to improve. The people I do see on a semi-regular basis can (I think) attest to that. But at the same time, this isn’t a cry for solitude. I still have email, a phone, and a house, so if you want to say hi, feel free to write, text, or stop by.
I’ll even let you play with my Lego’s.
-Jack
PopcornJackTerry 