What I Learned

One Week.  168 Hours.  I left all social media, twitter, facebook, and gossip sites.  I didn’t email from my phone, I responded to texts via phone call.  You can learn nothing from that experience right? Wrong.

This digital cleanse refreshed me in a number of ways.  Not only did it help me see the big picture a little clearer, it helped me objectively analyze and look at my life,  as well as the lives’ of society in general and I learned a few things.

1.)    The Majority of Social Media pollutes our minds. As you read this, stop and look at your facebook status feeds, or look at your twitter timeline.  I’d be willing to bet that 90% of what you read is in No Way beneficial to yours nor anyone else’s life.  After all, do we really care that “so and so” is “headed to the bar again, let’s get it!”, or how many times do we really need to have numerous friends worship or curse their favorite teams?  It may not seem like much, but think about this.  If you analyze your timeline, I’d be willing to bet there are more negative words than positive.  While it may not affect you consciously, think of what you are exposing your subconscious mind to.  Negativity, Self-Idolatry, Hate, and Pessimism over and over again in short bursts.  You don’t think that affects you over time?  I’m in no way judging anyone, just merely sharing my opinions based on my week of reflection.

2.)    Rumors and gossip sites make us become emotionally and psychologically immune to sin. This week, I caught myself wondering what I was missing on TMZ, and other gossip/rumor sites.  Then it hit me, why do I care?  NEVER on a gossip site is there any GOOD news.  If something good happens, they find a way to poke fun at it and say it will fail.  This week taught me that we as a society enjoy watching others fail.  Do we watch American idol for the good singers or for the ones that suck? Do we watch reality shows to see who wins or to see who gets eliminated?  We are fascinated with other’s downfalls, faults and failures.  We’ve forgotten the countless come-from-behind victories, great shots, numerous championships, and billion dollars Tiger Woods has won.  To society, he’s now just “a bad guy.”  I’ve seen tabloids and I’ve heard people say he should retire, there’s “no way he could golf now.” Why not?  I’m willing to bet at least half of those who read this have been involved in the same or similar acts.  But since Tiger is famous it’s different?  Is our moral compass so badly screwed up that we hold others to standards we ourselves could never or would never adhere to? I’m not condoning Tiger’s actions, by any means.  I am however saying that he is human as are all other celebrities.  If people followed you around with a camera all day every day, sooner or later, they’d have a “scandal” on you as well.  Back to my point though, all you see on these sites and magazines, is so and so cheated, so and so fought, this celebrity did drugs, that person did this or that.  It’s sickening.  Yet we continue to buy the magazines, and read the sites.  All the while, we are slowly but surely becoming numb to negativity.  We witness so many bad things that they almost become “ok.”  Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t say half of the words that are now “acceptable” on radio and television.  It’s sad.  Yet all we care about is the failures and shortcomings of others.  Have we become so disdained with our own lives that we’d rather stare at others pitfalls instead of trying ourselves to be better people?

3.)    We spend too much time on people that mean nothing and not enough time with people that matter. I thought I would die without text messaging.  I thought my skin would crawl after going 15 minutes without checking my twitter or facebook timeline.  How would I know what “everyone” is doing?  I literally at one point dreaded the fact that I could only call people back and not text them.  Then a funny thing happened….the time spent looking at predominantly useless stimuli, was replaced with the voices and laughter of people that I truly care about.  That’s not to say I don’t miss my twitter followers.  I truly am blessed to have the following that I have and the interaction that I have with many of you, and I’ll always cherish that.  I did however, find it enjoyable to catch up with old friends, have long conversations into the night, just like “the good old days.”  I think we get so caught up in “keeping up with the Joneses” in all aspects of life, that we not only take people for granted, we neglect them.  It’s almost as if we get a best friend, and we think to ourselves “Welp, I got them in the bag, time to move on and collect another one.”  I assure you, no J or “lol” can replace the genuine feeling of true laughter with a good friend or loved one, either by phone or in person.

4.)    As a society, we measure SELF-worth by public and social acceptance. If by this point you think I’m being judgmental of others, then this one is on me.  I think we as a society are all guilty of this, me more than anyone I know. Self-worth USED to and STILL SHOULD be about how you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror and it’s just you.  However, with all the stimuli fighting for our attention these days and telling us our best isn’t good enough, we’ve fallen to a point where we measure our SELF-worth by what others think of us.  How many of you, if you’re like me….if you’re phone doesn’t ring or a text alert doesn’t go off for an hour, you wonder if your phone is broken?  Look at your timelines, how many people beg for followers as if a large number of followers somehow magically make you a “better person.”  I’ve been privileged to have a rather large following on twitter and I’ll be the first to tell you, that doesn’t make me any better than anyone.  I’ve seen more substance in the tweets and statuses of “regular people” (for lack of a better word) than any of the “celebrities” I follow.  But somehow as a society, we measure SELF-worth by meaningless numbers and icons such as “friends, followers, verified icons, frivolous stuff.”  I’m guilty of it too.  I remember back when I got to 10k, 15k, 20k followers, boyyy I thought I was something.  I looked in the mirror, saying “self, you’re something special, they love you self.”  I started getting away from the positive quotes and overall positivity that was the main reason behind my “tweet success,” if you can call it that.  Had it not been for another highly influential and regarded friend of mine, I might be full of the garbage I spoke about earlier.  He reminded me, that we got to this level because of our humility not egos.  People follow us because of the good we bring, not the problems we cause.  It was a humbling conversation, but it really put it in perspective for me.  Baylor Barbee aka Tru Sounz is no more or less of a person if 37k people decide to hit “unfollow” tomorrow or if 5 million people hit “follow” this coming year.  Ultimately, I still have an obligation to God and society to give it my best, and leave the world better than I entered it.  My fairings in that quest are the true measure of “self-worth” not the titles and such bestowed upon me.

5.)    Silence and tranquility is an amazing Gift

I’m a highly social person.  If you’ve ever met me, or seen me out, I’m sure you know I’ve never lacked social skills.  I’m the polar opposite of shy.  Tying into my last point, I’m so social, that it’s almost as if I judged my worth, not by what people said or thought about me, but the response.  I hated to sit there alone, I love to talk, and I love to communicate.  By removing myself from all social stimulus, I had a lot of “me” time.  A lot of quiet time to sit and work, think, analyze, and reflect.  It was hard to get used to the silence, until I realized silence is a blessing.  The Irony of silence is that it screams so loud and echoes even louder.  You can step outside in a crowded street and be anyone you want to be, but when you’re alone, and it’s just you, God, and your thoughts….the truth always comes out.  Don’t believe me? Turn your phone off at 6pm and don’t talk to anyone til the next day and stay off the internet.  The hours CRAWL by, and you’re forced to look at yourself internally.  You can try and block it out, but in the silence, your true self screams at you.  I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, but it is a necessary thing.  The silence tells you the truth….always.  It tells you the things you worry over aren’t important.  It also tells you the things you claim to be over, the things feelings you claim to have buried and suppressed….are still there…deep, and they won’t leave until you deal with them.  I’m convinced we suppress so many feelings to the point that if we let them go and dealt with them, we’d all lose 10-20 pounds. Lol.  I’ve learned it’s a blessing.  With all this great technology and means of communication that we spends thousands of dollars on, the silence that God offers us is such a great blessing if you let it be.

Conclusion – So what does it all mean?  Am I going to delete my twitter account and unjoin facebook?  Definitely not.  Am I going to focus on the Quality of the substance in my tweets over the quantity? You Bet ya!  Am I going to be overly concerned with the minute by minute happenings of followers and “friends”? Absolutely not.  I think social media can be a great thing.  If you get anything from what I’ve written, I hope it’s this: We’ve ALL GOT TO DO BETTER!  We have to cherish things that matter, we have to strive to be better people, and we need to put solutions into the world, not problems.  We need to put positivity in the air not the stench of negativity.  We need to love, we need to hope, and we need to rely on God.  We need to Focus on what really matters, and together as a whole work to be better.  We’re all broken people in some aspect of our lives.  Whether it is our bodies, our mind’s, our souls, or all of them, we all need rehab in some form.  Let’s make a conscious effort to STRIVE to give the world our best, EVERY second, of EVERY day, for the few seconds that God gives us.  Who’s with me?

Forever,

Baylor