Realization…

It is hard to imagine this reality is about to take place for me. The longest I have been away from the internet is a weekend. One of my weakinesses is getting online to either waste time, check my email atleast 15-20 times per day, look at sports news, view current news I don’t even care about, read many blog post from others that I admire, and check out fact and interesting things whenever I listen to a podcast. I am at the point if I don’t do what I want to do I will be the person that has high hopes for himself and don’t do anything, because of this lingering obsession of the world wide web.

How I am going to eliminate the internet in my life

We all need to break away from the matrix from time to time. We have to see what we are actually doing to ourselves, by not doing what we always do. I will be eliminating anything that has to deal with the internet that is a part of me. I will be deleting my email account from my cell phone, not updating newsstand on my iphone to read blog post, hiding my air-card at my girlfriend’s apartment, if I have to use the internet at work just have a google search engine, checking work email 3 times per day, and delete whatever else that may allow me to be online.

How the internet has taken over my life

Now is the time for me to regain my own sanity and do what I got to do for myself. I am going to be off-line for 2 whole solid weeks. Just writing that makes me cringe and whenever I tell other people about this crazy goal I have set for myself they ask me why. Here is a quick scenario of my typical work day. I wake up at 4:15 and snooze atleast once, either workout or start my morning writing for 30 minutes, put on my clothes to the sound of a podcast, check my email before I go to work, get on the bus and check my email again while I am on the bus, update my blog post reader on my iphone, get off the bus, walk to the office, turn on my computer, probably start the coffee pot for either water or coffee, talk to co-workers, look at the internet some more and then look at work email, start my actual workday and here and there browse the internet and check email through the whole day, and so on and so forth. I am sure others have a typical day similar to mines, but I can only be accountable for my own self and I know how much it is really hurting me to get things in general done.

Activities planned

For 2 weeks with out the internet and very limited amount of television viewing I will be doing things I have been putting off. I will start writing my first novel and am going to increase the amount of time I write. I will continue to write about my thoughts and progress of this whole experience, but the bulk of the writing will be the novel. I will be picking up my reading and am going to read 2 books. I will also get serious with my photography; so I will be reading the instruction manual, watching the 2 dvds that came with my SLR camera I bought over the Christmas break, and simply taking photos. I will be writing a life business plan, I haven’t talked much about this, but will explain in the coming weeks. Play around using final cut express and seeing if I can merge a video or two together. Doing more workout sessions and cardio exercises. Continue to get rid of clutter in my life either by cleaning up my computer, apartment, or other shit that is not doing anything good for me.

My approach

Many experts will say that it isn’t wise to go cold turkey when a person wants to change a bad habit. To me for the internet usage there isn’t a great way to do this, but the only way is to stop the habit completely. When I am finish with this experience I will limit my internet usage all together, this experiment is more for what are my real goals and dreams in the world, and seeing if I can find the root of the problem so I can do what I want to do more of. We waste time every day with distractions that we don’t want to except are distractions. Most of the time they are easy fixes, but it is so easy to stay in the state of denial, because the distraction feels good to us, and it takes our minds away from the reality we  don’t want to face. I am all about getting away from the status quo, but there needs to be limits and guidelines set so that we can do what we really want to do.

See yall later!

Right now in the present state I am thrilled that I am doing this for myself. However, I know in the beginning I will have withdrawals. I believe when I am done with the experiment my mind will be clear and know what I need to do in order to enjoy life more. I don’t really know what to expect because I haven’t done something crazy like this.

This should be the last post that I write for 2 weeks and I hope that everyone takes sometime to stop an activity of something they may feel impossible to do. It is possible, we just have to want to do it!