Category: Priorities

What frustrates me isn’t social media.

What frustrates me isn’t passive entertainment.

What frustrates me isn’t big media/ advertising/ marketing.

What frustrates me is lack of intention.

What frustrates me is lack of self-awareness.

What frustrates me is the massive time suck / loss of potential the above mentioned things facilitate.

…There is a time and a place for social media, passive entertainment, and other media… but every waking second that we’re not otherwise doing some active task isn’t it.

What frustrates me is the inability to stand in line without our phones, the inability to sit at home alone without a screen on, the inability to go the duration of one singular day without checking every social media site.

Because in all of those waking seconds when we’re not actively tied up doing other obligatory things… we could be reading from the greatest books ever written, writing from the depths of our soul, uniquely expressing ourselves in our chosen field of art, having real life interactions with real life people who are desperate for real life connection, and otherwise—doing nothing at all. Just sitting, thinking, reflecting, digesting, and coming to terms with what it all means—to us. Not to our parents, teachers, friends, lovers, or favorite influencers—to us.

So that we can interact with it all (everything listed above included) with intention, self-awareness, and mindfulness. Because without it, I fear that our interactions with social media, passive entertainment, and big media will only continue to scale unintentionally—and what we see when we look back will be huge chunks of life and potential gone… just gone… with no correlating memories and no chance of returns or exchanges.

Over the past few months, I have been focused on reducing screen time—particularly as it pertains to using social media apps.

I have largely stopped posting, turned off essentially all notifications, and am being more mindful of the itches that arise to open and scroll.

This past Saturday, however, I had a moment where I decided to scratch that itch and check IG. Before I knew it, I was already 1 hour deep into a video binge of a Brazilian couple’s dancing page. Not joking. They were completely captivating and shared great content—but, it wasn’t how I wanted to spend an hour of my day.

This is the kind of thing that happens all of the time, with so many of us.

Hours and hours drained from our days watching content that’s captivating and well produced (this isn’t a shot at the content), but that’s distractionary in nature and veers us from our main path. My current path, for example, is to reallocate the time saved and put it towards IRL meetups, reading, meditation, deep work, and/or sleep.

How much better my Sunday might’ve felt, I wonder to myself, if I hadn’t stayed up that extra hour Saturday night scrolling through IG? And I wonder the same for you and how much better you might feel if you reallocated just 1 hour/ week of distractionary in nature media and put it towards something better?

Day 3 of #15DaysofGratitude: Thankful that I grew up in a time where screen time wasn’t a concern—having a no-screen-foundation helps me to navigate this modern, screen driven world in a way that those who only know the screen-filled life… can’t imagine.

“Build a social media empire!” They say.

“Post every day! Interact with as many people as possible!” They say.

“Tik Tok is where it’s at! Oh, but don’t forget about your Instagram! YouTube will really bring in the bucks!” They say.

To which I say… “No thanks.”

It’s not for me.

For every moment I’d be spending crafting the perfect thumbnail, worrying about stupid lighting, and fine-tuning the perfect 1-second pitch to capture almost non-existent digital attention… I could be spending in deep thought; wrestling with words; exploring the depths…

Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with building a social media empire. It’s undoubtedly an incredibly powerful tool and there are plenty of people who do it brilliantly.

It’s merely to say—it’s not for everybody. And you shouldn’t feel bad about yourself if it’s not for you. Do what makes sense to you and play to your strengths.

What they say and what you do should have nothing to do with each other.

P.s. I also published: 15 Aytekin Tank Quotes from Automate Your Busywork To Help You Reclaim Your Time

…Many people don’t know.

They’re merely doing what they think they need to do because it’s what they’ve been told/ taught/ tricked into thinking.

And sadly, in many cases, people are optimizing for the very thing(s) that’s making them most miserable.

Things like busyness (e.g. how can I squeeze in more time at work, check more emails, say yes to more tasks…) or comparison (e.g. how can I check my social media feeds more often, post/comment/share more, watch more people live their lives) or distraction (e.g. what social gatherings can I go to, who would join me in drinking/smoking/drugs, what TV series can I maximally binge on)… And so forth.

But, when you answer the question and actually know what you’re optimizing for—what you most want to optimize for in your life—your whole approach to scheduling changes.

You might realize what you actually want to optimize for are things like emptiness (e.g. an open calendar, no plans, no tasks) or connection (e.g. family gatherings/ outings, coffee with friends, live audio chats with like-minded people) or introspection (e.g. time spent writing, time spent meditating, time spent in therapy)… and so forth.

Take control of your schedule and you take control of your life. A schedule optimized for busyness isn’t going to get much inner work done—that needs to be decided and optimized for ahead of time. Never forget that it’s the makers of schedules who get the most out of life, not the prisoners of them.

P.s. How I like my paths.

Note to self: Time isn’t found, it’s made.

That important thing you always put off until later… to a time when you’ll find “more time”—is an illusion. It’s nothing more than a distractionary tactic of your mind to avoid doing the hard thing(s) now. This is what I’m reminded of tonight as I sit here writing this, at the end of my weekend, with a list of three other tasks that still need to get done because I assured myself earlier this week that I’ll have “more time” to do them all this weekend.

Time isn’t found later—it’s made in the now.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.