This
week was my first real full week off Facebook – like last week, I
found I had to pop in now n then to do something business or learning related
and this week I took a different approach when I had to do this: I took a
moment to scroll quickly though notifications to see if anything important was
going on because personally, I have never seen wisdom in turning news about
your community and world completely off:
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| Frigate soars at sunset (fjc) |
I know a cadre of guru-wisdom says
that you should cut off the outside world and not waste your focus and energy
on issues (like Trump, Brexit, Nuclear War, Pearl of the Caribbean) that you
can’t
control. But this ‘wisdom’ urges us to focus in
a very self-absorbed manner, only interacting with the world in ways that
directly align with the personal benefits you are channelling. For me, much of
my success goals are about creating a life where I feel good, and this of
necessity, entails a world where less strife and discord sully my days. I get
satisfaction from investing some of my time in doing my little personal
actions: they may not, in isolation, be much, but a river becomes powerful if
fed by many small tributaries, right?
So,
I kept an eye this week and sent private messages to those I felt needed action
and left the rest to be responded to on my Sunday Facebook-wallowing session. But
I found myself less and less keen to even pop on because I really was reaping
the rewards of focusing inwards. Yessiree!
There
is a lot to be said for at least an occasional stint as a hermit with a purpose.
But
then some other aspects of the week had me looking forward to my Sunday
Facebook time: I found myself ‘enjoying’ a real small-island-experience
as on top of the horrible heat and humidity, my water tanks ran dry due to
weeks without supply from the water company and the repair bill on my 15
year-old car grew rapidly out of control! And to top it off, just as I started to post this, one of my 3 rescue dogs, the oldest and heaviest and stiffest of course, fell into the open underfloor tank! Oh lawdy, lawdy! I am now adorned with very minor scratches on my elbows, shoulders and knees from carrying, pushing, persuading her up the ladder I popped in the tank - ie taking each foot and manipulating it onto progressively higher steps while I tried to squeeze myself up through the rough concrete edges of the opening. Well she was terrified stiff! That is until she got out then she was all wiggly and happy and excited and I was left to 'lick my wounds'! Gotta love'em, right?!? Well, it was my fault really, poor thing, I had left a temporary cover and how was she to know it would give way? So I treated myself to a warm bucket bath, as you do when there's no water in your pipes...
So, back to this morning. Staying true to my schedule, post coffee and breakfast, I
dutifully armed myself with a big smoothie and prepared for the soothing mud of
Facebook to ease away the week’s stress and strains…
Can
I say I found it far from the promised land?
What
I think I’m
finding is that if you have a couple thousand friends on Facebook, you can’t just dip in once a
week and have it work its usual soothing magic! It felt more and more like a
disturbance to my vibe than the integral part of my vibe that the daily stop by
the ‘Facebook
Café’
normally feels like….
hmmmmm….
So
as the month of Facebook Sabbatical progresses, we’ll see how this goes. I suspect, like most things, moderation is the key...too much, too little and you're out of whack!
I
know some of my other friends have taken Facebook sabbaticals, so I’m going to check in
with them and see if they can shed some light on how it worked, didn’t work and felt to
them and we’ll
share them later on in another blog-post.
Growth and More Insights, or maybe just questions...
What
growth and insights has this Facebook sabbatical offered me this week?
Well
I finished up the 21st Century Podcasts and added in a listen to the
War of Art by Steven Pressfield of The Legend of Bagger Vance fame. Interesting book …
a bit too full of other-worldly-beings for me, but the essential message vibed:
We have to overcome the many ways in which we suffer resistance to our calling.
Art for Art's Sake?
However,
much else of what he said just set off an internal discussion in my head over
the merits of focusing on ‘artistic quality’ vs ‘entrepreneurial art’. This was echoed last
weekend, by a friend posting an opinion piece from Ros Barber in the Guardian,
where the author was all for the traditional seal of quality of getting a
publisher or winning a Pulitzer and the commentors were rooting a bit more for
the self-published, no gate-keeper team.
- To claim success, is the acclamation of peers, or that of paying fans, of more value? Is a life of poverty because you’re being ‘true to your art’ something worthy, or does it miss the mark?
- Does writing, painting, making, need to be art, or is there an inherent and equal value in good craft?
- Does appealing to the masses, vs the critics or your professional peers, necessarily mean you are ‘dumbing down’ your work?
- Is it snobbish or true to art to crave recognition by the established ‘authorities’?
Ok,
enough esoteric stuff. But do chime in with your thoughts on this 😊 Meanwhile…
Advice
If you’re
a trainer, please prepare for the level of learners and ensure you update for
any new tools available!!!:
This
week I persevered with my Coding Websites course: It was a test of
determination, as one day I hit a wall where, try as I might, I could not
figure out the scant instructions! I was so annoyed at the course I even looked
to see if I could still claim a refund, because it skipped way too fast from a
little instruction to ‘you’re all on your own’ and to boot, didn’t have updated
guidance that covered the method I was using (which they encouraged us to take
advantage of). I did figure it out, with questions and help and research, and YES,
it felt fabulous to figure it out…but I was also annoyed
because a good course should provide realistic challenges after giving a sound
grounding…so
I felt an entire day was unnecessarily spent, where it should have been a few
hours well-invested.
And in other news...
I
fell reeelly reeelly short of my aim to take on that new diet! I succumbed to
being a taster for my friend who’s trying to develop an
improved recipe for a cake…oh the sacrifices we make!!! 😊 But I did manage to invest some more time in learning about what
this particular challenge requires and in testing a recipe or two…nothing yet worth a
recipe-post though ☹
In the Real World
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| Moonrise looking like sunrise courtesy my overly 'smart' camera (fjc) |
I had a good few real-world wonderful meet-ups with friends and strangers this week - those are priceless! There
were random, serendipitous and downright ‘ok maybe there’s something to the
secret after all’
moments this week that did help to balance out those challenges and when I sit
here now and reflect, it’s
fair to say, I excelled at feeling far happier and more confident about the
path I’m
taking.
And
that, my friends, I think is about the best we can all hope for from one day to
the next, isn’t
it?
Cheers
now! And if I don’t
see you today online, maybe I’ll see you on one of my Facebook
mini-dips this coming week, or, or, or… in person!!! Now
wouldn’t
that be grand!
