I hate Facebook!!!

Aix-en-Provence, 5 November 2016

This morning I hate Facebook — and yet I can't stop myself spending at least one* hour of every one of my days on it, and have done for a few years now ( * I think that figure is a serious underestimate :-D )... Yes, yes, I'm full of contradictions :-D .

But why do I hate social media? I think the principle of these tools is to be anti-meditation: it's about being somewhere other than where you are... so you're a long way from being in the present moment.

I travelled around the world for the whole of 2015, and while my friends sometimes told me how envious they felt seeing some of the photos I shared, well, likewise, I was often envious watching them enjoy all the nights out I wasn't at. Because that's what it comes down to, concretely: Facebook and Instagram mean witnessing 90% of events that you'll experience by proxy... Scrolling the feed also means being extremely passive about what we get to see, so we end up witnessing scenes we'd never knowingly have chosen to watch.

Honestly, what's the point of that? I mean, is there any value in seeing friends enjoying themselves without me, in seeing my ex's wedding photos.... is it natural? Mind you, it's not that I'm not happy to see other people's happiness... Only, I'll be honest: when I see my friends thrilled to be heading off to a salsa congress, I'm pleased for them, but mostly I want to go too :-b lol . So this weekend is the Amsterdam salsa congress; I'd been told about it beforehand and I made the choice not to do it. So far so good... So why do I get a knot in my stomach when I see so many of my friends there? I took the time to think about it and I sat down to meditate on it.

I wouldn't be any happier if I took a flight to Holland right now... This weekend there's also a salsa congress in Bangkok and another in Madrid; there'll be photos of those events all over my feed too and it'll look great, and I'd want to be there, but I can't be — I can't be everywhere, I have to make choices. Just as I can constantly see the glass as half empty, I can also see every choice as giving something up, and that way of doing things can't make me happy...

Meditating this morning, I chose to appreciate what I had, this moment that was being offered to me. I refused to think about the alternatives, about the parallel universes where I'd made this or that choice. I'm here and now and that's the only possible reality.. I may as well concentrate on it and appreciate it; I may as well not dwell on what it meant giving up, but rather on all the possibilities it opens up for me :-) .... that's better :-D .