You Should Turn Off Your Social Medias For A While, Too

If I could describe March 2017 in a phrase, it would be: a trainwreck. I messed up everything. I barely did anything, whether it was for keeping me busy (e.g. freelance jobs, commission works) or even for my own personal pleasure (e.g. binge-watching TV shows, reading a pile of unread books in my library). I spent most of my time staring at blank walls while listening to random songs on Spotify. Sometimes when it was late at night, I could broke down into tears so easily. I felt empty. I felt a large void inside myself.

I even wrote this in this blog in the midst of my emptiness.

I felt everything will went even worse if I keep myself occupied by staring on my phone for hours.

One day, I decided to went on a little vacation to Sangiang Island, an island nearby Anyer Beach, without being active in social medias. The vacation will be for 2 days, hence it made me turning off my social medias for 2 days too. Turned out my decision for staying away as far as possible from social media for 2 whole days might be the best decision I ever made.

Again, as I always point out over and over again in my writings, I learned to see beauties in every little aspects in my life. For this case, I learned to see beauty in distress and misery. Heartbreak, rejections, and emptiness might bring me sorrows, but they I never let them linger for a long time. I turned them into something for me to grow. To be a better person.

Turning off social medias help me to process things faster. I can fully focused on my personal reflection. With the help of the gentle wind blowing off my cheeks and the calming voice of sea, I easily found the conclusion of my own problems. How I constructed an ending for my own personal problems.

Then, I learned about the positivity of solitude. As far as I concerned, we live in a country and a world who are seem to be a little too frightened about solitude. Teachers are calling parents to tell their concern over a quiet, lone children. Eating alone are considered odd. Basically doing anything alone are grotesque; "You should ask someone to join you," people will always say.

I learned to embrace the solitude I had. The world might be too hectic, too busy, and too noisy. You might actually want to take a break for a while from this world, and joyfully enter the world of your own; with your own inner voices. Take the time to listen to it.

You might want to read this beautifully written article about embracing solitude here.

Next, I learned to live my life to the fullest; living in the moment. We spent our time staring at an artificial, man-made world for too long we forgot our genuine, real world. I had the best quality time with my entire family during my trip to Pulau Sangiang. We laughed and I shared hundreds of new stories with them, after such a long time. I got millions of new insights of my own family. I think that was the most beautiful and heartwarming thing I ever did in these past years.

I snorkeled again since forever. Maybe since my last trip to Belitung, almost precisely a year ago. I spent a lot of time not thinking how I miss snorkeling since then. It felt like I finally found my long lost soulmate after a year apart.

Loving life has never been this beautiful.

And lastly, I learned that in the end, I choose to be happy.