Intro

Hi. This is my blog. Thanks for checking it out! :P I've started this blog hand-in-hand with my impulse decision to take a Facebook Sabbatical. I'm not really sure where this is going to go, but I'm excited to try it!

Why take such a Sabbatical, you ask? Here is a tiny bit of background into that decision.

Lately I've been considering my life, its direction, and its purpose. I have to admit that I didn't particularily enjoy what I had before me. I wasn't finding myself particularily motivated, I started being late for everything, skipping classes, bailing on friends, finding every way to avoid chores like cleaning my room and throwing out expired food from the fridge. I honestly kept thinking: "I am WAY too young for a midlife crisis". I tried things like daily schedules and checklists to keep myself on track, but those didn't seem to be working. I didn't look forward to much. I was in (and am still pulling myself out of) what I like to call a rut. (Such a small, fun word. I'm fond of the irony.) I hate ruts. Bad decisions come out of ruts.

I was finally forced to take steps to come out of my rut, but I still wasn't quite feeling it. It took a book to inspire me to enjoy the trip. Last year (or the year before?) for Christmas my mom gave me The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I finally picked it up off my shelf last week. I haven't finished reading it, so I can't endorse it just yet, but I've found enough of it so applicable to my life to make me feel like I can do my own Happiness Project. Not because I'm particularily unhappy, but because I want to be happiER. And motivated.

My first step was to brainstorm. I sat on the top of my stairs with a notebook and wrote down everything that came to mind that I wanted to do differently or new actions that I thought would make me feel better about myself. That was a list of about 20 items and included things like "Put laundry away the same day", "Dress up for school once a week", "Read scriptures", "Make the bed", "Do something scary", and "Make someone feel special". Obviously 20 things is a bit much of a change all at once, but I took a few things off and plan to ease myself into it. I also made a list called "Things I want to grow in...", and came up with 6 things that I really want to build myself up in. They are: Confidence, Endurance (both physical and stength of will), Spirituality, Knowledge, Love, and Inspiration/Motivation. How I plan to do this? I have no idea just yet, but when I come up with something, I will let you know.

In Rubin's book, she talks about removing clutter from her life. She was speaking of physical clutter, and I was definitely itching to go through everything I own and chuck half of it because that did sound wonderful (I still might do it :P), but I also thought of mental clutter, too. Which leads me to my Facebook Sabbatical. This is not the first time I've considered leaving it behind for a while, but now was the first time I was willing to part with it. I'm a very social person, and I like seeing what everyone is up to. However, it's the source of such a huge distraction and is such a time hog, that I'm actually thrilled to be taking a break from it. I can still keep in touch with and check in with my friends and family. That's what phones and email were made for. :P First I deleted the app off my phone, just to phase into it. I had no idea how often I was checking it before I did this! And it's not as if there's a lot of nail-biting stuff on there that needs that much of my attention. So the idea is to be off it until January 1st. But we'll see! Maybe I'll feel so great about it that I'll stay off it even longer. Another plus is that it means I have to have more one-on-one interactions with people to share news and things!

And that is my overly long, in-depth explaination of why I'm on holiday from the distractions of Facebook, and how that started me on this blog. :P

My future posts may or may not relate to my own Happiness Project, or my life in general. Maybe I'll tell a funny happening of the day, review a book, or rant about something else! You never know what you're going to get! I plan to post something every day.

Thanks for reading! Happy Tuesday!