one year...one life changing experience
It's hard to believe that it was just one short year ago when I first purchased my flip phone. I originally had no intentions on keeping it for too long and it seemed like a temporary fix to my long-term problem of cell phone addiction. Had I known what I was getting into that cold december day? What caused to make such a drastic change to my typical lifestyle? Was I really serious about this decision? The verizon sales man was asking the same questions.
I look at the progress I have made as an individual, mentor, leader, and teacher. Over the past year I strived to get my story out into the open, hoping to inspire others to decrease their phone usage. But I realized I did much more than just that, I worked to make people aware of the damage social media can cause on someone.
In the spring of last year, my story reached another writer, who was also an advocate for antisocial media and limitations of cell phone usage. I was asked to write an article about my flip phone for their parenting blog. Soon after, other opportunities arose to help spread my story. I soon after wrote an Article for LifeWay Parenting Magazine about the significant transformation from an iphone to a flip phone. Word of mouth along with school news paper articles helped spread my ideas about a change in our younger generation starting at the root of the problem, social media.
Over the past year I have noticed my classmates, friends, and even adults unhealthy cell phone addiction problem come in direct conflict with their lives. I have firsthand witnessed the tragic decline of our society as it slowly degrades into nothing.
I have learned a few important life lessons I have gathered from my year with a flip phone:
1. Lean into the discomfort. With no iphone to act as a distraction I am forced to sit and do nothing. While typically most teenagers and adults hate the uneasy feeling of discomfort and get on their phones to prevent interacting with others. I have met numerous people and had the chance of hearing their stories and taking a piece of them with me forever.
2. Social media can be degrading. Snapchat stories of friends hanging out with out you, instagram pictures of gorgeous models, and worries concerning the amount of likes we get calls attention to this critical issue I like to call SMC (social media corruption). Comparison along with envy are just some factors that play a role in our collapsing society centered around social media. So the next time you share something ask yourself... "i am doing this to please others or myself." Most people post onto social media trying to comfort themselves and prove they are keeping busy with friends.
3. The world is a clearer place without a camera. While your camera may have portrait mode, or amazing camera quality, your eyes is better. When I had an iphone I was continuously missing out on special moments because of videoing them. If something is memorable it will be saved to the long term memories in your head not in your snapchat.
4. Live in the moment. Put down your phone and spend every last second with the people you love. I have come to the hard realization that we may never know how long something or someone will last, and that you have to make the most of it while you can.
5. I have learned to accept myself for who I am not for who my instagram profile says I am. I leave aside my fake personas and have taken on a new one, the real me.
It's been a crazy year filled with realizations, and excitement. So cheers to one year, and many more to come. A once skeptical regretful decision turned into a lifelong legacy.
