What is your biggest Asset?
Don’t be fooled by material things that are ephemeral in nature, don’t be fooled by the numbers in your bank statement or the number of houses you own. Your biggest asset is the one you can’t get back, the one that will be most valuable to you if you choose to manage it properly. Your biggest asset is your time.
Social media has become a gift and a curse. While simultaneously allowing us to stay connected with our friends and family, and the rest of the world it has also created a large scale attention deficit problem. The dopamine rush your brain receives each time someone likes your status or comments on your photo has made social media become addictive to many. It has made a society of zombies that have forgotten about the real world, in an attempt to embrace the illusion of the virtual one.
Welcome to the matrix
Go outside on a beautiful sunny day and watch the dozens of people with their gazes locked onto their phones oblivious of the outside world. These people are trapped in the ‘matrix’, they can not be present to the moment because they have forgotten what being present entails. They have forgotten the bliss of just being alive, enjoying the moment as it is, without trying to change anything.
The worst aspect of being trapped in the social media matrix is the amount of time it robs you of. It has become the norm to spend hours a day checking your Facebook, Instagram , Snapchat, emails, and Twitter. You have to ask yourself the question; “Is this building me or is it taking away from me?”, is social media helping you achieve the things you were meant to achieve in your life or is it a road block? For many it is the latter. If you are finding yourself running out of time through out the day, and not accomplishing the things you want, maybe it is time to unplug.
Unplugging social media | The return of time
It’s time for you to face reality, and understand that you have not been performing at your highest capacity. You have been distracted. You have missed the mark, and now it is time for you to return to the source of happiness; pursuing your self-actualization in the present moment. Essentially you need a paradigm shift, you need to realize that social media is not a necessity in your life, but a small supplement.
Remove the pop up notification that spam your phone every few minutes, doing this is half the battle. The pop up notifications on these social media platforms are like constant invitations to return to the party. Understand that most of the notifications you receive are of petty concerns that you do not need to focus on. If you are reading this I am assuming that you are trying to live a fulfilled life, how does knowing who liked your profile picture serve you? Disregard these small concerns that rob you of your greatest asset ( time ).
Learn to have a set period of the day when you check your social media, I like to check mine between 9-10pm, stick to this period and spend the rest of your day doing quality work, and things that add to your bliss ( don’t worry you won’t be missing out on much). This goes for emails as well, check and respond to your emails during a set period of the day, don’t waste your time replying to emails through out the day, once again most of these emails are not urgent and are generally petty concerns.
Try this out for one month ( the estimated time to take on a new habit ), and pay attention to how much more productive you become. The same 24 hours that you have always had will seem much longer, as you would have eliminated the things that have previously robbed you of your time.
What have you found to be one of the biggest time consumers of your day?