You don’t have to feel sorry for not being online
Honestly, you don’t always have to be connected.
You know today is your high school best friend’s wedding but you were not invited — or at least that’s what you thought. Your sisters blame you for the missed airfare promo because you were not responding on Messenger. Worst, your colleagues call you out for being boring when you cannot relate about this cat video circulating online.
Don’t worry, I don’t get that cat video, either.
It seemed like you missed out on a lot of things, but the truth is, you didn’t. And you shouldn’t feel sorry for not being in places where people expect you to be, for not taking part in the conversation that everybody is talking about, and for not getting a supposedly hilarious joke that your officemates are laughing at.
There’s a stigma that if you’re living in the ‘now,’ you have to be online. You have to be the first to know what’s trending and what’s not, and what matters and what doesn’t. But the digital world is such a suffocating place where a lot of information are bombarded to you in every swipe of your screen.
The online world is just too much, and it’s really too much to take.
So if you’re torn between going on a social media detox and not wanting to miss out, always choose the former. You cannot force yourself to digesting every single update that happens to your friends. There are far more important things to do offline, like learning a new hobby or exploring a new city. You don’t always have to be in-the-know of what everyone’s doing because what’s important is what you‘re doing to become your best version.
It’s okay to be offline, to be busy with your work, to meditate and re-focus your goals, to sit silently and think about your day, to meet a friend who needs your ears and to sleep early and get ready for tomorrow’s workout. It’s okay to stop being connected once in a while and just focus on yourself.
Don’t worry about missing out on your friends’ lives. Worry about missing great opportunities that will help you grow.
Also, you can choose to watch that cat video later. Afterall, it will never get old.
