Update on a Facebookless Life

Once you have a Facebook account, you can never not have a Facebook account. 

That still bothers me. 

It also makes it easy to get back on once you've "left Facebook for probably forever."

Although I don't think I ever really said that.

Maybe I did. 

Anyway, I logged back onto Facebook one day to see exactly when it was I left Facebook.

If that makes any sense. 

It was the middle of January, by the way.

But the odd thing was that it wouldn't let me deactivate my account again.

It kept saying my password was wrong. 

You know, the exact same password I had just used to log into my account was now incorrect since I was trying to deactivate my account (again). 

I started to panic.

For real.

Because once I logged back into that world, I felt the same sense of dread. 

And I'll you a secret.

I lost about thirty minutes of my life just seeing what everyone had been up to.

Without my even realizing it. 

Good grief.

It was a good test. It made me realize that even though there are parts of Facebook I miss, this was absolutely the best decision for me. 

I still get sad because I miss out on a lot of stuff. I miss seeing what far away friends are up to. I hate that I'm not seeing their kids grow up or see how they are. I miss announcements of playdates and things like that. 

But it's okay. 

I'm trying to keep up better with those people in other ways. And it's working.

And I'm protected from a lot of drama.

A. Lot.

A sweet friend told me of a situation on Facebook where her feelings were hurt just the other day. It made me sad, and I thought about this phenomenon of social media even more. 

I read an article recently about ways women struggle that men don't usually. A major player in this "game" of disfunction was social media.

It's become a huge enabler in our sea of disfunction. A weapon of mass destruction.

And I simply was not above using it myself.

So I removed myself from the equation.

I'm explaining this a lot to my daughter. 

Not everything is bad. I'm not sure I will ever be able to say that Facebook is bad. (I have noticed that nearly everyone who asks where I've been on Facebook responds the same way when I tell them I've jumped ship: I should do that too. Then they get this sad look on their faces. I'm not ever sure how to respond. I'm usually quiet. Unless they ask my opinion. This is something that is between an individual and the Spirit.) 

As there are a lot of things in life that aren't bad, they may not be good for me. I'm trying to teach her this in so many different areas of her life. 

It's not easy. I'm not sure she gets it. I will keep trying to explain it to her. And to me.

I keep thinking about this.

That's probably another post, though. 

This is still the best thing for me, though. This not being on Facebook. And after these five months away, I'm more certain of that than ever.

There is a sweet blessing in obedience, even when, or especially when, it's hard to obey.