All week, I’m working to CREATE a little more peace, love, and joy by making some adjustments here and there to my daily habits.
So far, I’ve told you about two…
> I turned off my email notifications.
> I set a timer and focus.
Today’s effort to create peace, love, and joy is tricky…
I’m updating my social media.
Yep. I bet we can all agree that social media is a huge peace and joy killer. I could dump the whole thing, but that’s not really practical because I run several Facebook pages, I like to share pictures and such with family, and I get a lot of good information from social media. But here a few things I have been able to do (and it’s been a process!)…
I searched for and followed accounts I was truly interested in, ones that were inspiring, helpful, substantive, and specific to topics I enjoy. I unfollowed accounts that are no longer relevant, shallow, or useless. I turned on notifications to any accounts that published content I didn’t want to miss, and I turned off notifications to accounts that I wanted to keep around but not be bothered by (I can deliberately go to those and read content when I’m ready.).
And here’s the hardest part…I unfriended a bunch of people and unfollowed a bunch more. Y’all, this is hard because we feel pressured. It’s like we may have to explain ourselves and provide evidence for why we let some “friends” go. We don’t! We should not feel bad about unfriending people. (And by the way, Facebook knew what they were doing when they called them “friends”. We feel guilty when we let go of a friend. Uugghh.)
I’ll be honest. I’m not completely there yet. There are still some people I haven’t unfriended but should. I think if people aren’t interested in our lives, aren’t valuable to us in some way, don’t ever like our comment on our posts, and we never see them, they should go. I’m getting there. The guilt factor is strong, and it shouldn’t be. I don’t like myself for it.
There should be no social media account or “friend” that make us feel some kind of way. I’m making adjustments slowly, and I’m feeling better. This one’s a work in progress, but I’m trying.
Peace, love, and joy, Y’all! Create it!
Amanda Herring, Writer 