Today, I celebrate my first anniversary of being Facebook sober. I deleted my account with 10k+ followers, a decision I did not make lightly. I mulled over it for two weeks before delivering the final blow.
While trying to convince myself to live up to such a heroic deed, I realized it wasn’t as easy as I hoped it to be. If you were to ask me for an analogy, I can say it resembles a lot with the struggle for quitting smoking. I have done that thousands of times.
Eminently, the FOMO factor kicks in first – how will I stay informed, how will I be able to keep in touch with my friends and the network, and where will I be able to express my thoughts to an audience that broad, will I be heard anymore?
I told myself I would not be left downright obscure, there are plenty of fragile souls to fill me in regularly. And they did.
Though the rewards of living up to it turned out plentiful, benefits uncountable, even rewarding for mental health, looking back in hindsight I can list a few interesting things I’ve missed out on:
- funny videos with dogs and cats
- boring graduation indexes and utterly identical photo shots
- hundreds of happy parents wishing their little ones to become scholars on their first day of 1st grade
- millions of 'respect' comments on posts
- sporadic experts weighing in their opinions on a multitude of unrelated matters
What a heart-wrenching sacrifice indeed.
Therefore, here I stand today, in front of thou honorable assembly, to affirm you in case you feel the urge to pursue a similar path this thorny, if you have voluntarily handed out your attention, coupled your mind and life to pets, diplomas, and other similar deficiencies of the human produce, don’t ever think of taking such a critical life-changing step forward, as the dogs will then bark, but none will be around to hear their noise. None to falsely boost the shiny graduates engulfed in pedicure and manicure too.
"A thorny path winds through life's tangled embrace, each step a dance with prickled grace." – Hazreti ChatGPT