Miss Perception and Mr. Perspective

Recently I became aware that my perception of being social might be tainted. Nothing like a little perspective thrown in my face. What I mean is that is it so easy to get drawn into the online social networking world… a faster way of communicating with friends and family than waiting for them to reply to an email or voice message. It would seem like any free time I had, I’d use to check the statuses of my friends. In a way it is helpful because I was “in the know” of who was doing what… but why do I feel the need to know in the first place? Does it give me a sense of comfort? No. Does it fulfill me? No. Does it make me happy? Maybe. Maybe not.

Several instances in the last week have brought me to the conclusion that I in fact have a problem, an addiction if you will. The dictionary defines addiction as this:

addiction |əˈdik sh ən|noun: the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. A dependence, habit, problem. An obsession with, infatuation with, passion for, love of, mania for, enslavement to.

I think I did have an obsession – an infatuation of sorts with finding out who was doing what in the local area. I was checking facebook at least 3 to 4 times a day, when really even checking it once is probably over kill. A few weeks ago I started praying about it. I asked God to open my eyes to what I am called to do. I already know that I am called to be a wife and a mother. I know that I am called to sing at church. I know that I am called to be a friend… What I’m not called to do is be on the computer or my phone.

So, I have started a challenge. A few weeks ago my pastor mentioned fasting. He told us that fasting meant giving up something to concentrate on God. It didn’t necessarily have to be food, it could be anything that was an addiction. So, I deactivated my facebook page…. and a strange thing happened. I felt lighter. Color filled my cheeks. I can’t say that I haven’t been tempted to re-login to that world, but that is part of detox, right?

If you know me, will you hold me accountable? My goal is to be socially offline until February 16th. (After that I will only check in a few times a week.) I will still blog and search google for recipes. I will still check the weather and pay my online bills… and in my spare time, I will be living life. Being social, offline.

loving each other...