Downtime Detox - Surrendering Social Media

Context

Junior College common tests are finally over, our results are out and post-mortems -as school likes to call it- of our papers have concluded. Reflecting on my performance, I have not done well enough to feel deserving of a huge gold star sticker and neither have I done so badly that I return on the brink of giving up and feeling thoroughly depressed. However, with time running out to prepare for the ominous final exams, the time has truly come to roll up my sleeves, rise up to the challenge and finally perform.

As a student, one of the most problematic things I've had to deal with is my distractions. Poor discipline coupled with the number of distractions available leave me desperately squirrelling for time all too late. With the stakes being so high and so many people making me realise things cannot remain at its state of motion if I truly want to ace my academics, the time has come to get my ducks in a row.

Initially, I tried to control and monitor my phone usage through simple, efficient applications (apps) such as self-control and RescueTime to gague how toxic my relationship with my phone was. So, these apps would ban me from certain apps or scare me into reducing the hours, minutes and seconds spent 'online'. However, the mere presence of the apps would make it difficult for me to not tap on them and squander precious time on them.

What I tried to do

It came to a point where I had to let it go... A friend of mine suggested the typical, habit forming 21-day practise where doing one thing consistently for 3 weeks supposedly ingrains the act and helps us do what we have to or want to do. However, going cold turkey was way too intimidating and felt like going on a crash diet where once you manage to lose all the water weight and whatever not, you'd spring back to your original ways and lose all the progress you've made. So I decided to temporarily eliminate my most addictive forms of social media. For me, this was Snapchat and Instagram. The amount of time and data usage clocked in my these two oh-so-convenient and entertaining apps had to go. So, in one week, I only allowed myself to install these apps once a week thereabout. Little did I know how big a difference it would make.

What Happened

A few days with a void empty of addiction was honestly an eye opening experience. When something stressful or uninteresting was happening, I couldn't just mindlessly scroll down my feeds to pass the time. Instead, I had to actively find alternatives which were of better use of my time and prevented me from ended off in a slump.

Evidently, when people feel down about themselves, they're more likely to use social media to check other people out, making them feel even worse. That was probably what was happening to me with my social media usage.

No one asked me why I wasn't replying to their snaps or liking their posts and I guess no one really cared. In social media, it seems like you're being involved and connected but because you're connecting with so many people and everyone reacts and interprets things differently, eventually, you start feeling as if the time you spend online is time you spend with no one at all (or might have been better spent with no one at all).  

Time spent offline forced me to think things through and come in terms with myself. I realised that I may not be very well liked in a few of my social circles but I had a hell of a good time in others. So instead of wallowing over the fact that no one liked me in certain settings, I could spend a few moments in self-compassion and move over to the bunch of people who actually seemed to care. 

However, the most remarkable part of this experience was how I had this constant feeling of liberating happiness began to surround me by the 4th or 5th day. When things did not go the way I wanted it to, I managed to step back and rationalise how I wanted to react to things happening around me. If I didn't like a song in my playlist, I wouldn't let inertia force me to sit through it. If I was scared of doing a certain physics question, I wouldn't give up and scroll through my updated feed, I'd get help as soon as possible and get things done. 

This detoxifying experience not only made me a happier person, it got me to be a positive force on the world - probably what I'm trying to be by sharing my experience through a very long blog post. No longer do I feel inclined to post everything that I was doing but when something really good or nice happened and I want to share it someone, I text someone close about it instead of my passive few followers. Getting a response and interacting, actually interacting with people felt so good that when I finally returned 'online' a week later, I didn't feel as bad surrendering social media.

Unquiet times we seize

These quiet times aren't much to find
Yet seem so filled with unease
The silence, the breeze, the peace around
Feel empty, displeasing, and just cease

Mistakes made, regrets surface, the past comes running in
The fears fill, some dark pills of oncoming days

We yearn for the quiet, for the peace
to be free and to play
Yet the unquiet sets
engulfs us and
leaves us all in our place

Maybe it's better to fill our time
Each second bogged with thees
Only then might we stop drifting
In a life with just no keys

Maybe we'll stop regretting
Maybe we'll find a key
Maybe we'll feel some passion
Maybe there'll still be breeze

Why do we yearn for peace and quiet when there seems no such thing
No peace can last
No quiet won't pass
Unquiet times we seize

Love, Ashi

Dear Dad,

I know I don't call you 'Dad' very often and I don't want to sound superficial on the net but there's something very pleasant about saying 'dear dad'. -it might just be the alliteration but bear with me. This May, you've finally been accredited your silver jubilee as you turn 50, so Happy Birthday! You were barely thirty when I came along and now, eighteen years later, I can proudly say you're old. Ha ha ha, kidding. Here's a few things I wanted to tell you, but couldn't really trust you'd remember what I was saying so I'll just put them into (a series of 0 and 1s-like) words.

With these fifty years, the amount of hardships you've faced, the wealth of knowledge you've acquired, the connections and the quotes have made you such a unique individual, nobody ever seems to get enough of you. Perhaps that's why you've always been that one champion fighter in my life and the encouraging one who stood by me in whatever earth-shattering problem I came home with. The short but frequent walks we take and our casual after dinner conversations atune me to the oft-forgotten fact that you are and always will be there for me to the best of your abilities and that simple assurance truly means the world to me.

I know you never quite got to do the parenting thing with us when we were little and so you've never actually been able to be a father the way non-mariners do and I don't think I've actually acknowledged these compromises you've had to make for us. Those eight to eighteen months straight that you would go without either of us seeing you at all left us as complete strangers to the other for way to long. And thus, as much as I wish I could say that was okay, and that things wouldn't be any different if you weren't in the shipping industry, I can't. But at the very least, I realised all you had to lose out on and all you've done to bridge that gap and for that, all I can say is thank you.

Now, just because there is so much we love about you, that doesn't mean we can overlook all the things you shy away from, so let's just bring that into the open too. The amount of times you've overlooked family and gone against your own words has over time, been very, very damaging to your being. Just because you are busy on weekdays doesn't mean you over-exercise on the weekends. Just because you like to read, doesn't mean you enforce your ideals onto another being. And just because I stay rooted at my study table, doesn't mean I am studying. The world isn't as black and white as you seem to make it out to be. Every child needs a strong role model in the form of parents because you and Mom are the two adults who most mould me and make me the person I have become. I've realised how much I emulate the two of you and and I'm not very proud of some of the things I've taken up from you two. Now, the baton has been passed over to me to take responsibility for what I do, but that doesn't mean you slack yourself and ignore the high standards you once set yourself to. So, do the things you love, re-evaluate your priorities every once in a while and let us know where we fall in your grand scheme of things.

The previous paragraph may seem a little harsh but don't worry, it's not like you have done nothing right. The kind of relationship you share with Mom has been one which has shown me so much about thinking beyond the needs of oneself. As an emancipated woman of the 21st century, it is often difficult for me to understand why two people would ever what to come together and live a life together when they have enough to deal with themselves. I can only hazard a guess on why anyone would want to shoulder the burdens of another and at one point in time, I didn't even believe you and Mom loved each other. Now I realise the fact that love is not everything and it doesn't always last, but seeing the bond you and Mom share, I've slowly started to see otherwise. I mean, the praise she has for you when you're not listening and the deep dependence you have on her have pretty much made you two an unbreakable unit who truly do your best to be there for one another. Hopefully, one day, I'll also be with someone I can wholeheartedly depend on and learning from your mistakes, do better than you've managed to.

All in all, I don't even know if I really want you to read this but I needed to thank you for every single thing you've done for me, tangible and intangible. And I guess what I'm really trying to say, though I don't say it very often, is that I love you. So, keep learning and keep growing the way you tell me to.

Love,
Ashi

Confessions of a Tech-a-holic

For longest time, I denied the notion that I was any bit addicted to technology, or for the matter - my phone. Having joined the technological era a little later than my peers, I thought that my affixation was not in as advanced a stage as many others. Yet, to my grief, I have very recently realised that I am not better than the rest of my generation, sucked into and living through technology.

You see, until the age of 12, I didn't have my own phone. My parents didn't buy into the idea that children needed phones and thus -thankfully- never succumbed to my pleas of giving me one. This meant that people who wanted to reach me had to call on my home phone or wait to meet me in person, something that was quite normal in the ancient days of 2009. This had its inherent benefits where I didn't get to make frivolous, unscheduled decisions out of the blue because it wasn't very easy to communicate to my parents where I was or wasn't going to go and I wasn't the only one without a phone attached to the hip so being accountable wasn't easy when there were changes in plans. Thus, my parents knew that if I wasn't home by a certain time on a given day, they had every right to worry and not have to hunt down some handphone or pager which might be beeping and giving me slack for my spontaneity. It also meant that I didn't have to wake up to glaring unnatural light or return to an overheated device with '437 messages from 8 conversations' in the span of an hour. In fact, being void of a phone probably deepened my relationships with the people who mattered in my life and so, as much as I wanted a shiny flip phone or sleek device to listen to music and carry around, that experienced was postponed for me and I can't be more grateful today that it was.

That being said, I wasn't privy to other forms of technology like the blessed laptops, ever portable radios and the addictive TV. But, my use of technology wasn't as bad as those around me and thus, I was pretty much under the radar. It was only when I got my smartphone that things began to change, slowly at first, but eventually spiralling out of control. With Instagram, Snapchat and Whatsapp, my phone was my wingman who literally held my hand through it all.

Initially, my parents and I had an agreement when I got me my first phone that I was to use it as an aid to my work and not a distraction. Thus, every time my phone was with me, it was either for work or for 'breaks'  (pretty much summing up the life of a first world teenage student). If I was listening to music, I was using using my phone to 'motivate' myself to study. If I was using the internet, I was 'researching' or 'gaining general knowledge'. While technically true, in reality, I was steadily falling into the clutches technology's open arms and I clearly didn't mind or simply didn't care. So there went the agreement. However, the failings of said agreement were not noticeable until I began Junior College, where the use of technology was allowed and even expected.  Since you didn't get into any blacklists for being seen texting, many of us jumped on the bandwagon and freely enjoyed what technology had to offer. That's when things began falling apart.

Having gotten accustomed to using technology for taking notes, sharing information and collecting memories, my entire life began to reside within my 5'5 inch screen. This unsurprisingly, makes separation from my phone uncomfortable at best, and downright unbearable at worst. Now before you mark this confession off as my maiden voyage in the land of tech breakdowns, I must mention that I have gone through numerous break ups with technology in the past. My first phone and iPod got soaked with clothes on two different occasions and countries, while my first smartphone mysteriously ended up lost/stolen on a long journey to school. However, beyond the guilt of my tardiness and the cost incurred from its loss, I never felt any emotional withdrawal on distancing from technology... Who am I kidding?! It's always been outright painful and difficult to come back from and this was no exception.

Yesterday, I dropped my young Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the screen malfunctioned. Having dropped it a few times before, I was initially quite unaffected by the fall. However, when the screen remained blank, worry began to seep in and the feeling of guilt resurfaced on possibly having damaged yet another lifeline. When the little wingman of mine finally showed signs of light, I realised that something was really wrong seeing miniature dust particles scattered over half the screen and steadily increasing. So, it was with a heavy heart that I got home with a translucent phone screen and confessed my loss to my presumably upset parents.

To bring it back to life, my mother took the liberty of bringing my phone to a service centre today. However, at that time, I was 'expecting' messages and information on my near unreadable device and couldn't wait for her to get it back, fixed. The anxiety of waiting for a response was so exhausting that I probably would have been unable to do little else until my mother returned had I not been occupied by my laptop. The emotional turmoil I went through was the tip of the proverbial iceberg which finally convinced me that I have grown overly and unhealthily attached to my phone. So you see, I finally had no way of denying my addiction to technology.

Having come clean, I now need to find ways of fixing this mess I've made. The path of cold turkey is no easy one and neither is everything else that the internet suggests with discipline like mine and a soft spot for frequently switching to possible alternatives. While I actively attempt to fix my unhealthy fixation one step at a time,  suggestions and advice will be greatly appreciated. My addiction to technology has not only been an emotionally unhealthy one, but one which has affected my relationships, academics and possibly my health. Hopefully, things get better and all will be well.

As for now though, this has been my confession or rather the confessions of a tech-a-holic.

I Wish You Enough

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final “Goodbye.”

It's Not The End

Earlier this month, a schoolmate of mine from my secondary school decided to end her life. The reasons or series of events leading to it are unknown to me apart from the fact that she left some emails to her loved ones, an 'im dead' tumblr post and jumped off the nineteenth floor.

It had been almost a year since I last saw her and the fact that probably all of us did not know there was anything worrying going on with her made it a shock for each and every one of us who got the news. That very week, people from her class and the rest of our school tried to turn up for her wake and burial but the shock of her departure had left everyone stunned.

This being the first time I experienced the death of someone I have personally known and loved, I now have to somehow face the fact that I'll no longer be able to see her smiling little face or hear her calling me 'Aunty Ashmika' every time we meet despite us only being a year apart in age.

While I still can't get myself to come in terms of this incident, questions of numerous kinds began to reappear with greater force. Is wasn't like I've never considered thoughts of death, loss and separation before but the suddenness and unbelievability of the incident left me lost for words or any form of response.

Time might ebb the pain her family and friends are experiencing at her departing and we will be forced to continue our lives knowing that she isn't around us anymore but the memories we shared and the love we had for her will never be forgotten. We may have no right to judge her or condemn her for what she did but maybe her decisions and it's direct implications to those all around her serve as a timely reminder of how precious life is and how much every individual is worth beyond measure even if they themselves believe otherwise. Death may be the final destination but perhaps it's not the end.