The Old Way – Day 7(Closure)

It has been a wonderful week where I learnt what are the effects of social media. The parting started with a headache but at the end of the week it was almost gone and can able to focus much better, be it life, work or anything else. The whole day I just opened my Instagram twice for 5 minutes and YouTube twice with altogether just viewing a video of 10 minutes which earlier used to be 2 to 3 hrs on a normal day.

Talked to a number of people in my contacts, called my home more frequently. Developed a few habits like using LinkedIn more wisely to connect to like minded people helping in personal and professional growth. It feels like some new life I am moving in. I guess people should more often think and reflect a bit critically in two weeks or a month time and ask yourself questions. Like is it right what I am doing? Is it helping me to achieve what I want to become? If the answer says no then there should be a full stop to it.

I love a quote from Dear Zindagi, It says, “Zindagi mein jab koi pattern banta ya koi aadat banti dikhai de na … toh uske baare mein achchi tarah se sochna chahiye … genius is about knowing when to stop“. Translation: “In life when you see a pattern or a habit forming … then you should think about that very carefully … genius is about knowing when to stop“.

I will try to do this self reflection part more often, thats what I learnt in these 7 days.

Adios

15th Oct’20

The Old Way – Day 5

Its a day 5 and happily have not broken the streak still. I missed writing for the last 2 days. Actually didn’t much happened so pretty much explains it.

Recently an elderly couple got very fame in ‘social media’ because of a video getting viral of them and their business bust boomed and all that. Its a good thing but I didn’t know of it and saved my time discussing this with others and just enjoyed my time. It felt very strange though as what is just being viral in the internet which i noticed in the last decade was just no more a thing for me. My internet just included WordPress, downloading Adhar, browsing code on GitHub or finding the distance between two places using google. All these things I was doing for myself and for a better understanding of who I am without social media influencing me.

They say in Myanmar if you buy a new mobile phone, Facebook comes mandatorily pre installed and more than 50% of the population just believes that internet is just Facebook and nothing else. This very loophole was heavily exploited by their Army. On the other hand a newspaper which takes a lot of time to make a user base(Years), a 15 year old influencer can influence the people with a tiktok or Facebook or YouTube account in 15 seconds. With great power comes great responsibility. Now I regret the time I spent in feud of T-Series vs Pewdiepie or tiktok vs YouTube. Because at the end if the day they just add up in the deviation in what I generally should do.

13th Oct’20

The Old Way – Day 2

The morning was much better as the brain fog disappeared like it never existed. I was also relieved with that fact. I started positive and the cravings for a newer video with a catchy title was very less. A few times I accidentally opened the Instagram but just closed it immediately. It can be argued that the app can be removed from the phone completely but hey, the real strength is keeping it near and doesn’t letting it effect you.

The work is still taking some time to adapt as its a very big break that I am having after so long. It requires practice and have started reading the documentation instead of the YouTube videos or some course. Its taking a bit of time to understand the concepts but hey again, Rome wasn’t built in a day or in a day and half.

I have realized that sweating out is as much important as cleaning yourself, eating, breathing and all the important daily chores we do. It just takes you out of everything and releases some hormones endorphins and dopamine which makes life better and gives you some more clarity to take your decisions.

I had a very good conversation with my relatives and cousins, something which I thought wasn’t gonna happen soon. The leisure time was spent in these stuffs. Lets see what the next day is going to bring in for me.

8th Oct’20

The Old Way – Day 1

I saw a Netflix documentary /The Social Dilemma and decided to not use my social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Mails, Quora, Pinterest and whichever platform which tries to lure and recommend stuffs to me. In addition to this I have turned off all the notifications from all the apps and have kept the phone on silent and far from my reach. I am here to pen down my observations which I felt in last 24 hours. This log will be for 7 days and I will try to observe whatever I can.

My Head has become quite heavy and there’s a constant pain lingering in the back which starts from the forehead. May be because of the deficiency of dopamines that used to come after I watched certain videos or read some topics. My sense of having a sane thought has gone almost numb. Is it a numbness or a silence, still not able to differentiate.

Lack of concentration on stuffs like daily work and there’s not any enthusiasm followed to do it. I kind of find it strange because these were the things which really excited me in college and always wanted to know more about it. I thought I lost interest but can now see the cause of this problem.

I am able to listen to my breaths and the going traffic down the road which I didn’t earlier paid heed to. I will probably do some physical activity to get things aligned and lighten up my head. Just made a list on what i wanted to do from quite a time and will start working on it or this boredom will eat me.

7th Oct’20