I’m sitting at my desk. It’s 4:15 A.M. My diffuser is sending a cool mist smelling of Pumpkin Spice into the air.
One week ago I was preparing to take a road trip with my wife to Albany, NY. I had promised myself that I was going to take a break from the news, social media, and any distractions that may compete for my time. The current political state of the U.S. and the chaos that seems to reign in Washington, D.C. and the news media was eating at my soul.
I needed a break.
And, I needed it NOW!
I’m pleased to say that I was successful at turning things off. I turned of both television and computer. I spent a lot of time reading and taking care of some odds-n-ends that required my attention at home. A couple new door knobs on bedrooms, lawn cut and outdoor furniture stowed away for another year. You know, odds-n-ends.
Now, here it is a week later. My blood pressure is good. Well, that’s mostly due to the medication. But, laying low for a week helped I’m sure.
Did I have any great revelation while away?
No, not really.
However, I am going to make a couple changes for my own well-being. You see, I tried very hard to know what’s going on in the world. I listened to as much as I could from many conflicting sources. I didn’t want to spend all of my time in an echo chamber only hearing one side of a story in order to continually feed and reinforce any biases. And, I do hope to continue to listen to everyone that I can. There are some, though, that I must let go of.
Today I am going to go through my social media feeds and weed out many voices. These are voices that I truly love to listen to. But, they are voices that I don’t really need to hear. So, I will bid them fond farewell. I am going to restructure my Twitter feed. If I can’t do that in a satisfactory manner, I’m gonna ditch it all together. I intend to leave other media alone. For now.
I have a calling. Part of that is to write. Part is to listen, study, and think. (Some say that I do that too deeply. Oh, well.) I’ve got to focus on that more. Especially, the writing part. Not only here, but in other ways as well.
So, am I refreshed from my time away? No, not really. I’m still leaving in about an hour and a half to go back to work. Life moves forward without pause. It cares not a whit whether I’m feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. But, I was able to draw my focus back a bit. Hopefully, that will be enough for now.
Glad you got to take a break. I too need to take a step back from things for my own sanity. I look forward to seeing more writing from you!
Then, by all means step back. We humans don’t like to stop moving and doing. I don’t know, maybe some kind of human inertia. But, we were not built to be ‘doing’ all of the time. Sabbath, or what ever you want to call taking a Rest is a necessary part of being human.