A life I love.

I finally feel like I’m getting to the place where I want to be. I’ve fought, made tough choices, and really followed my heart at times where my mind cast doubt…and I can honestly say it’s all worth it.

If I could, I’d tell everyone in the world to follow their passion, to do what makes them happy. I think many people get caught up in the trap that it’s too late to change, or too much relies on them maintaining the status quo that they won’t even consider playing with the thought.

I have the Holstee Manifesto hanging in my office (holstee.com/manifesto). It’s a beautiful reminder that “This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often.” It goes on to say life is simple, things will come to you if you let them, take those opportunities when they come to you, create and share your passion, and so on. I love it!

Anyway, just thought I’d come back to this…it’s been a while. I’m so busy nowadays, but for me, it’s totally worth it.

Freedom and cutting ties

Today I decided to download my entire Facebook profile (My Account > Privacy Settings > download profile….something like that), and began cutting the Facebook cord. I deleted albums, deleted my profile interests, and changed all privacy settings to “only me.”

Knowing I had my entire profile downloaded, I still felt a twinge of fear and nervousness because I was cutting myself off of feeling “connected” to the world.

Then, I realized, before social networks, there was never a strong urge to broadcast my every coming and going, my whereabouts, my relationship status and so on with everybody, even acquaintances or friends of friends.

What had been a jumping off ship to board Google+, where I realized I didn’t want to manage two social networks and preferred one where I could keep my circles hidden and much smaller and more manageable, I slowly discovered that the fear back into breaking these bonds with people I may never talk to again was simply just prolonging the inevitable. What I mean is, as I deleted photo albums from over 5 years ago, many faces were those I haven’t seen since college, or have fallen along the way from people I even occasionally talk to– I would have stopped knowing about their lives a lot earlier had it not been for Facebook. It’s kind of creepy and sad.

Is this life, or is this just a side effect of social networking– realizing that you will meet hundreds of people throughout life, but only a few will ever stay for life. Some people who comment in my posts are people I don’t even think I’d have coffee with again. At first there’s excitement, but you begin to realize they’re engaging in your words, and not necessarily “you.” I could be any one of 200-500 (or more…) sentences on their stream, and happen to be that one they can relate to at the moment.

Anyway, all these weird feelings, trips down memory lane and odd feeling of some brainwashing finally being lifted has got me contemplating about social networks. Given that I’ve moved away from most people I talk to these days, I’m experiencing the strange feeling of being alone once again. But I like it. There’s no pull to get immersed into other people’s lives, wishing to be in their shoes while they experience other novel chapters of life…knowing if we were all in the same room I would still wonder if they were really a “friend.” Now, the friends that I do manage to keep seeing over time, and the new ones I’ll make, will be true and with me for as long as we can mutually benefit from each other. People always seem to come and go, some longer than others, and I have faith that it will happen once again.

I’ll end this late-night rambling now.