pursuit of minimalism

Since moving from my home state in 2013, most of my social life has moved from face-to-face to strictly internet updates and occasional phone calls. As I launched into social media full-time (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and recently started a Twitter), I became quickly disillusioned. I began to quickly feel disconnected and lonely. Then, came the trials of life, disappointments, and failing health. The loneliness gripped me more intensely. Life seemed to stop for me. All of my pursuits ended in closed doors. A lot of my friends were experiencing big and wonderful changes in their lives. As for me, I sat at home, watching the seasons slowly change and hearing the monotonous tick of the clock from sunrise to sunset. I have had nothing but time on my hands and, yet, motivation and inspiration and joy remain far from me. As I watched myself drift along, my anxiety attacks became a constant companion, culminating in a trip to the E.R. last month. The isolation, the lack of purpose and movement, no productive occupation - all of it has borne down upon me. To say I have been cynical, jaded, depressed, and bitter is an understatement. Some days, I am all those things and more. The most frustrating part was not being able to accurately and fully share this with my friends abroad. I mean, who writes status updates like this? I reminded myself that I could always just call and share with them where I am at. However, being the type of person that is somewhat of a nervous phone-caller [only my very closest family and maybe one or two friends do I feel comfortable talking with over phone], I avoid the phone altogether. Perhaps, the most significant reason why I have avoided my friends: shame. But most of my friends didn't even bother to call me anyway. That is a subject for another post, though, as I sift through what I have processed from this past year. Nevertheless, I must be honest...I have never felt more miserable in all my life as I have during this season. In the midst of my misery, I have been overwhelmed by social media. I am guilty of playing the comparison game as I have watched nearly everyone (even people I don't even know or didn't even know existed until recently) win the lottery at life. 

  Successful businesses, intimate community of friends, the ultimate marriages, the most adorable wardrobes, life-long creative dreams becoming realized, landing the greatest jobs, and even terrific testimonies of the Lord providing the biggest and most lavish surprises!

  Honestly, it's like watching your Pinterest boards come to life and attach itself to everyone except you. 

  Recently, my husband and I were discussing the topic of connection with social media. Clearly, the constant connection with everyone is becoming more of a disconnection. In addition, we're all busy bees just living vicariously through the lives of others. My husband pointed out how crippling this kind of "connection" is on a local level. It hinders us from really making a difference in where we are at because we're so preoccupied with what's going on with everyone else in everywhere else. My husband even drew this example further and tied it to how the news media keeps us all connected to random, mostly trivial and insignificant events in other countries. Even here in the U.S., someone in California gets to be updated on some random burglary in New York City. Who cares? Apparently Americans do because we eat it up like gluttons. There's something addictive to knowing what's going on in the lives of others, whether negative or positive. Sometimes, those events that are totally unrelated to our lives stir up a larger force than is necessary. For example, the Ferguson 2014 shooting. Whatever your opinion is on the matter doesn't matter because whatever happened in Ferguson, Missouri should stay only in Ferguson, Missouri. The loss of anyone's life is tragic, regardless of whoever they may be. Yet, we would be wise to stay out of business that doesn't concern us, as well as things we know absolutely nothing about (unless one plans on moving where such events have taken place and become involved in the local community - but, no, we'd rather just sit back comfortably into our chairs and shoot out our opinions via social media!). Since when has humanity ever taken the side of wisdom and learned that lesson? It's human nature to meddle. Whatever happens in small counties across the U.S. or the remote plains of Africa always concerns us and even though we don't live there or know anything about the people or the situation, we suddenly need to be informed and have a strong opinion on everything pertaining to every single event. Suddenly, we become disconnected from our own neighborhoods, our own towns, our own cities. We don't care about the events happening in our backyard (good or bad) because our minds are so distracted by what's happening everywhere else. As a result, our own towns and cities fail to be given the very best that their citizens have to give because we are a very distracted bunch of people.

  It's disgusting and tragic that this is where we are at. We allow ourselves to becomes slaves of the media (whether social media or news media) rather than using it as a tool for the good of ourselves and others, as my husband so wisely stated.

  So, what is the solution to this problem? For me, personally, it has been wrestling with this concept of minimalism. Recently, I have been so overwhelmingly inspired by the blog, Becoming Minimalist. I resonate with so many of Joshua Becker's posts and am so thankful someone is brave enough to step out and live and speak on minimalism here in the U.S. Minimalism is such a vast concept because it entails an entire way of living. It is holistic, I suppose you could say, since it leaves no ground uncovered. It covers the whole of a person's existence. I started my journey towards minimalism last summer when I began selling household items. Initially, I was merely saving up to buy myself a decent camera, but what I didn't realize is how addicted I would become to getting rid of unnecessary items in my life. Suddenly, most everything I owned lost its meaning and purpose. If they were gifts, I didn't lose the memories. The memories are not in the item, but rather in the person. Slowly, one thing after another, I began saying goodbye to a good majority of my earthly goods. Our one bedroom apartment finally became a comfortable one-bedroom apartment rather than an over-stuffed one-bedroom apartment. There is a freedom that I cannot quite describe that comes along with living on less. You don't experience it immediately. It kind of sneaks up on you and, suddenly, you realize that this is the kind of life you want to live. In addition to this, with living away from my closest family and friends, it dawned on me how much more of value they are to me than living a luxurious and well-furnished life. Obviously, they have always been my everything, but I didn't realize just how much they are truly my everything in this life. That is one of the reasons I bought a camera, to be able to capture memories of them every chance that I get to visit them. Their smiles, their presence. Those are the things that I want to adorn my life with. With another potential move this summer, I am envisioning what my and my husband's new apartment will look like and I have only one decor pursuit in mind: photos! Photos everywhere! Naturally, displaying them artistically will be important, but I want the faces of everyone I love on the walls of where I live. I want that daily reminder that they are, and will always be, the best gifts I have in this life.


  In constant pursuit of a minimalist lifestyle, I asked myself, "how can I transfer this to my social media/online life?" I have been so burdened by the constant noise and distraction that social media brings to my life. I am in a constant love-hate war with it. So, I have asked myself what I do love about it. The people I know - the people that care to know me. The ideas that I want to implement into my life. The pages that inspire me in my pursuit of minimalism and things of value. Slowly, I have begun chipping away at the amount of pages or people I follow via Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. I deleted my Twitter when I realized that it didn't appeal to me much and hardly anyone I know is on there. My goal has been to follow less than 50 pages/people on my accounts. One of my biggest pet peeves has seen some friends following 300 or 500+ people and pages. Really? Do they even read every single one of those updates from those pages? I highly doubt it. As a result, they end up missing the updates from the friends they do know because their friends' updates are drowned in the massive sea of updates. Sadly, I know the feeling of never being seen on my social media accounts because that has happened to me countless number of times. A few friends of mine would completely miss important things I wanted them to read or view because they are following 500+ pages and only happen to check their account every other day or so. Well, if you aren't checking your account every hour, clearly you will never see what someone posted yesterday because you are following 500 other accounts that are daily (sometimes hourly) posting updates. Our social media newsfeeds are blown up with a bunch of updates that don't enhance our lives nor do they concern us. It's ridiculous. I wish people would just realize how absolutely silly this all is, but sometimes we are so busy allowing ourselves to be distracted. I understand how tempting that distraction is because I, too, have allowed myself to do that time and again. 
  As I will continue to decrease the amount of pages and people I follow on all my social media platforms, it allows me the freedom to focus solely on those that I do love to follow or those whom I personally know. While I stopped using Facebook last year to follow friends (I deleted it and then created a new one just to follow pages), I became aware that I missed hearing from and sharing with a few people that are only on Facebook. I plan to return to Facebook soon but will only add a very small amount of friends. One of my other pet peeves is adding people just because they requested to be my friend. These people could be individuals that I had met and known during the duration of my college years, or when I went to Bible school, or wherever. Or, they could be relatives that I had known at one point in my life but have never talked to or seen in person in the past 10 years. They could also be a friend or family of a mutual friend. Sorry, but just because we know the same person doesn't mean that you and I actually want to invest in talking with one another. If you want to become my actual friend, that takes a lot of time, not just following and liking and commenting on my updates. And, lastly, this one irks me the most - when someone requests to be your friend after they saw a mutual friend "like" or commented on a big eventful update you posted. Thank you, Facebook, for letting people who aren't on my friends list see my updates through our mutual friends. Ugh. When I got married two years ago, I had a lot of marriage updates and wedding photos on my Facebook. Suddenly, people I had been briefly acquainted with years before started requesting to be my friend. I even had a relative want to add me, who has never reached out to talk to or see me after years. Although I had pursued them in my younger years I was always met with silence and flakiness. *facepalm* *facepalm* *facepalm* While it may offend or cause people to wonder why I won't accept their friend requests, it doesn't bother me anymore to ignore requests. If it isn't obvious to them why we shouldn't be "friends," then there's nothing I can about that. It's about time that someone use social media correctly instead of becoming a slave to its every suggested friend and page.

My encouragement to myself is that I do not have to be distracted unless I choose to be. 

  It seems so simple and obvious and, yet, how easily and quickly we lose self-control. But the pursuit of minimizing the unnecessary in every part of life is worth it. That is what I am finding from day to day. When I stop putting my time into "catching up" on the lives of people I don't really know anymore (or never knew) and stop investing in relationships that have evolved, changed, and drifted away, I realize that I have more time and energy to love the handful of people I do know. Also, in pursuing minimalism, it has dawned on me that it truly is O.K. to let people and things go. It doesn't have to be done in bitterness or disappointment. Life is very much like the changing of seasons. Some things remain, some things leave. Yet, it is also good to mourn and grieve those hard and sad changes. The first 25 years of my life were marked by constant things. But near the end of those years, many changes came along and most of them were very difficult. Those changes brought an end to the life I once knew, but they also ushered me into a new one. Now, I can say that I have entered into an entirely different and entirely new season. To my own astonishment, I have found that beginnings are just as hard as endings. I don't know where I am going in this new chapter. I want to hold onto everything from the old, but am slowly learning to let go and to travel a little more lightly and with more focus into this next season.  This is what minimalism is teaching me.