Digital media can be very seductive to a busy mind. Consuming frequent news and social media content keeps the mind unsettled and compulsive. It’s easy to feel busy and at work when consuming media, yet any heavy user knows this is far from the truth. There is rarely anything truly productive from a digital consumption compulsion other than loss of focus. When your dominant training of the mind is consuming content, you are losing the ability to create. You are training the ability to rapidly process small parcels of content instead of focusing on one task. It is no wonder then that many people notice a reduction in their ability to focus.
Shortly after Xmas I stopped using social media and reading the news. After a period of time I found my perspective had changed. I no longer thought about events in far away places or the fear sentiments of viruses, politics and economics.
My mind seemed to return to my body and its immediate surroundings. After a while it began to day dream about the past, processing memories. When a spare moment arose I allowed myself to be in that moment rather than reach for my phone. This meant relearning to exist in the present moment and allowing a feeling of boredom. But instead of the boredom growing into a sense of unease something else happened. After the boredom came calm, stillness and a greater sense of meaning.
My mind had found its way back to greater clarity. There was less information but more than enough. I feel more creative, as if my consciousness sits calmly on a blank canvas. Ideas are free to emerge again. Less is more.
It’s easy to feel like you are lost. The world we live in is made larger by our digital lifestyles. Our mobile devices tempt us to leave our present behind and to live somewhere else. Where are you really? Consuming content and maintaining incidental relationships? Return to yourself, return to the real.
You need space to be able to hear your own voice. Your subconscious voice needs the conscious mind to be quiet for a moment. Your conscious narrative needs emptiness to be heard. Your body needs peace to connect with your mind.
There are so many voices out there. There is plenty of content. But I think yours is the more important of all. Stop looking elsewhere and listen to yourself for a moment…what do you hear?
