I had a conversation the other day about distraction. I personally went off most social media in the last month. Since I have been traveling for most of my time for the last 10 years, I love to stay in contact and read about my friends’ updates as well as posting my own. Two things changed over the last years. Somehow my news feeds consist mostly of reposts written by people I don’t know, suggested posts of people I don’t know, and ads for stuff I don’t want to buy. By now, there are so many different options that you need to check 3, 4, or even 5 different feeds, and then you have people that share everything everywhere…
sucked into the stream
Social media for me became mostly a very easy accessible distraction, engineered to suck us into a never-ending stream of content. And when you want to create attention through your own social media, you have to play the game and create stuff that is engaging as well and helps to suck others into the stream.
depth
I like to have a deeper meaning in my conversations, I like to have depth in my relationships, and I want to take my time.
And yet I have never posted anything longer… because that exceeds the attention span…
Since I don’t post and especially since I don’t read social media posts anymore, I have written more and longer content than I have done in years. I am more focused, and I am much more relaxed. It forces me to spend more time with my own thoughts and be okay with them and with myself. I am currently very confident about my thoughts and myself.
Which brings me back to that conversation I had about distraction, distraction from an emptiness. We who have learned that everything in life has to be earned developed a work ethic that is more of a hustle culture. Not doing anything, emptiness, is laziness and then you don’t deserve… success… or whatever you dream about. So the distraction doesn’t really have to distract us from the emptiness, but from the thoughts that will fill the emptiness.
worth and purpose
The questions about worth and deserving and being loved, being wanted, being needed. And then about purpose. Why are we here in the first place? Then we need the confirmation from the outside. External validation of who we are, what we are worth. The hardest task for me is to do nothing and still be happy… and yet some of the happiest moments in my life were times when I did nothing… Just enjoyed being there. In love with life and myself.
How about you?
Did you ever have thoughts like that?
What is your go-to distraction and how do you refocus?
By the way, if you want to have a meaningful conversation about that, let us schedule a call.
