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Lose Your Voice, Find Your Way

 Here's an experiment to try: lose your voice.  


You will soon realize how much you talk.  How little you often have to say.  And how much you have to strain to even get that much out.  

You'll start hearing more and seeing more happening around you.

And I'll do you one better: while you don't have your physical voice, delete your social media accounts as well.  You'll have very little contact with the outside world.  You'll see who calls and who texts.  You'll realize you're checking your phone less often.  You're taking fewer pictures and worrying less about checking in.  You'll do that little thing we once called "living in the moment".  

I know, I know.  It sounds so patronizing when we slow down the social stream and tell everyone about it.  I've done it and heard it before.  But it is honestly liberating.  I now have time on my hands that I couldn't understand at first.  Until I realized how much time I had been wasting.

I think the late great Betty White may have described it best on her last appearance on SNL:


Again, I'm not hating.  Because Sweet Baby Jebus knows I have needed my Facebook at times.  I've used it for dating, networking, socializing, my writing career, keeping up with friends and family, etc. But for most people, after a while, I believe we realize that we actually have a small number of family and friends that aren't that hard to keep up with.....IF WE REALLY WANT TO.

You also start realizing that you're spending less money and your self image is a little bit better.  Your FOMO decreases and so does your envy.  You don't creep on your exes and they don't spy on you.  

Then you might go one step further and think about all the people who are taking up all the air with sooooo much to say.  Things you kept hearing and processing that you didn't really like.  Didn't really learn from.  Didn't really grow from.  And maybe, just maybe, how it may have derailed or even damaged you.  

Remember when you were young and you went to books and people for knowledge?  You will find yourself doing that again.  You will find yourself rediscovering things that may have once been a big part of you that you somehow left along the wayside.  You may even remember the authentic you that got lost somewhere in all of it.  

I think one of the best parts of my adulthood has been learning what I need and what I don't.  Online socializing and phone apps have become calculated extensions for me.  Are they good to have? Sure.   Are they absolutely necessary? Not so much.  Knowing how to use, access, and post on Facebook and LinkedIn, get a ride on Lyft, download and convert a PDF, set up your Tether at home....all good skills.  But so is knowing how to ride a bike, make homemade soup and sew a button back onto a blouse.  Will those skills make or break you?  Probably not. And can you usually find someone to help if you really need it?   Probably so.

Moderation and patience have always been tough for me.  Why wait when you can do it, have it, get it right meow?  Losing your voice and your social media outlets make you have to stop and wait.  You absolutely don't have a choice.  You have to let someone jump in line ahead of you.  

And maybe it's your time to wait for a minute.  I know it was time for me. 

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