How To Go From Mindless to Mindful: The Prequel

When I decided to share what I did to evolve from mindlessly scrolling to mindfully thinking early in the morning, which I attributed to a minor tweak in my daily morning routine, unfortunately, I neglected to discuss the whole process behind my decision, forgetting to share the process of how my progress began. . From there, I went on a tangent into how one minor tweak can lead to major changes in your life.

The Beginning: Though the process seems straightforward, there will be plenty of deterrents that will challenge, and sometimes even prevent, you from making constant progress. Enumerated, here’s what you should do:

• Commit to decreasing social media usage at a steady rate
  • Understand that it’s not an instantaneous process. It will require patience.
  • A linear regression is always better than a wavelength graph
    • If you think you can kick it out of your system without a plan, you’re wrong.
    • You’ll go through withdrawal and you’re more likely to fall back into the same, even worse, habits, and come crawling back more addicted than when you quit.
• Realize that you’re not missing out on anything
  • The harsh—in the beginning, but great in the end—TRUTH is you are absolutely not. Your “friends” are not sending you anything important. If it’s something you need to know, you will know. This is also a great way to distinguish who your real friends are.
    • Ask yourself the following:
      • If somebody wants to know what you’ve been up to or how you’re doing, won’t they text to ask you? If you’re thinking that they’ll dm you, keep reading.
      • If they don’t even have your number, are they really your friend?
        • This goes both ways! If you want to know what your friends are doing or how they are, text them!
      • If they’re not really your friend, why would you care if you miss out on an update?
      • If a friend wants to show you something, don’t you think they’ll text you?
        • You might lose followers, but you’ll gain real friends. A tradeoff that I’ll take everyday since stories are better shared in person as everyone that tags along will make memories that everyone will cherish.
  • On a more serious note, have I mentioned that laughter from memes is only good, on average, for two seconds, granted they’re really funny? Often times, they bring a chuckle for about a second.
  • Knowledge, on the other hand, is good for a lifetime.
    • Would you rather know a joke referencing a seasonal meme or know something that you can proudly share anytime possible?
• Imagine what you can do with your newfound free time
  • Rather than reading punny captions, humblebrags, compliment-seeking captions, and ads, you can educate yourself!
    • Would you rather be a part of a statistic that contribute to companies’ growing daily users used to increase their valuation or raise your own value by educating and investing in yourself?
    • Do you like being a part of an algorithm that maximizes profits?
  • Spend quality time with the people that matter and see how they’re living, live, as opposed to watching others on live
  • Take the time to explore
    • You can learn something new about yourself at any given time any day
    • Be self-centered for once
      • Why scroll through a discover page to learn more about others when you can learn more about yourself?
  • Say no to swipe and yes to life
    • Why be tempted to see what people strategically put in the middle of an album when there are plenty of emotions to feel, knowledge to absorb, and growth to experience?!

Honestly, it can be difficult but that is simply how progress is made. Growth cannot occur until you encounter, and survive, a challenge that is taxing. Ironically, I plan on using social media to grow my website and blog. I guess I’m somewhat of a hypocrite.

Anyways, it’s social media. It can’t be that hard to quit, right?

Let me know if you’re successful in your quest!