Six Months Unfiltered and “Like”less

The alarm blares through the groggy haze in your bedroom. Who knows what it looks like outside, so you check your weather app, rather than the window. You spend twenty minutes on your feeds- liking, following, tweeting and friending. Your friend’s cousin’s friend is in Europe, and your boss’s sister’s coworker is dating someone new. You wish that you were doing something that would get you that many likes. You aren’t, so instead you post a selfie later because your makeup game is on point after you got ready. You make sure to google a good quote to include though, so it is not too basic. You spend half an hour picking filters and airbrushing it, and once your skin is satiny, you post it. After a few minutes of checking the status of likes, disappointed, you go rush off to work, barely seeing the tangerine sunrise above you.

You know you’ve been there- so preoccupied with your feeds and social networks that it seems like it’s the only thing that exists or matters. Our world is a media-soaked popularity contest. Instagram likes are our currency, and retweets are our change.

Now imagine your morning without the phone or internet or opinions of anyone but yourself, and those with you in person. Take out the social networking and put down your device, and what’s left? A good face of makeup? An infinite knowledge of good hashtags? An unobserved sunrise? Did you really do anything else? What about all day? What else did you do? If the answer is nothing; if the answer is “does Netflix count as something else?”, then you are totally normal.

This is our era. Those things are our LIVES. That can be good- we are connected to the whole world, and we meet people that we might not have met before. But do we really care about that, or is it all a distraction from the things that are tangibly there- the coworker at that lunch break- the one that you didn't talk to, might have needed a listening ear because she is losing her home. What about your little brother whom you ignored at breakfast because you were scrolling through Pinterest; the mailman who you passed by on your way to the car as you checked your reflection in your selfie cam. We have a lot more connections- true, but we are missing out on ones in our real lives in the process.

Luckily, I was blessed with parents who waited until i was 18 to let me get a phone. Yes, sometimes I whined about it through middle school when I was the only one who didn't have the pleasure of picking a profile picture on Facebook, but overall I took pride in the fact that I could take a hike without having to prove that I went on one. I knew that I had less stress, and I knew that people liked that I was unique. I was able to develop actual hobbies and appreciate things that no one else noticed as they were glued to their phones. Being reliant on Wifi really does a number on our creativity and overall originality, and it makes us forget that we are individuals. We do not need to be like each other to be well liked. Our feed does not need to match the popular kids’ to be popular. I could not be more thankful for my delay in getting connected to everything.

When i was 19, I decided to go on a service mission to Brazil. I had had a phone for more than a year by then, as well as the social media, and overall reliance on it. The idea of not even having TV to watch seemed like a very abstract idea. I left my Iphone, social media outlets, computer, and basically all connection to the outside behind (with the exception of an email account).

I won’t lie- the first month was bizarre. I was constantly reaching into my pocket for my non existent phone at first, but after a short amount of time, I found myself entirely in the moment. I found myself immersed in every lunch with new friends, every sunrise on the beach, and every walk by the jungles. I was fully and completely in Brazil, rather than partially there and partially in a hundred other places.

Picture a morning where instead of waking up to a glowing screen, you wake up and do yoga to the sounds of monkeys outside. Instead of googling the weather, you step out onto your tiny tiled balcony to see rain on the jungle and rainbow parrots. Instead of not having time for breakfast because you ate that up with your scrolling, you eat a fresh banana with guava juice on simple wooden table, or even the floor because who cares- whatever makes YOU happy works. No one is there to like or unlike your actions. That is all up to you. In the afternoon, you learn something new, explore without sharing it (don’t worry, it still happened anyways), and you volunteer because you have the time. THAT was what it was like to live without my precious phone. It was blissful.

In those six months, I became fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, taught English classes to teenagers five days a week, embraced a new culture as my own, and never missed a sunset because I was not looking down or watching a new TV series. I never missed a moment. Was it hard? Um, YES. It’s hard work to fill up a day without 972 followers to do it for you, but I stopped living vicariously, and started living for myself.

A half year without technology was simpler. Much simpler. I took out all wasted time and energy that I put into other’s approval and lived for myself. Without all the pizzazz of modern amenities, you tend to find more simple pleasures. I found out what brought me happiness, without knowing what society thought that should be. I cannot describe the joy I got out of things as simple as playing in a flooded street, eating a fresh bowl of acai. My days and hobbies did not have to be Instagram worthy. The joy of playing street soccer with a bunch of little Brazilian kids, who, even though you totally suck at soccer, totally are pumped you are there with them, is beyond compare. The satisfaction of a clean kitchen, the excitement of holding a big yellow parrot, the LOVE of teaching someone who WANTS to learn… these are pleasures all lost to the Millennial.

All of this gets muddled in the stress of having to capture it for our feeds, or impatience from having to work before you can get to a screen, or the general numbness felt towards things that we only see ourselves- things that do not make it to our Instagram pages (which is a lot of things in life). We are narrowing down what brings us joy to include only the things that can be liked by others. We have lost the joy of everyday moments. Joy is truly something that is found best in the little things. I realized that I got an insane amount of happiness from things like the palms catching the coral light in the evenings, or having a sandwich picnic after a class well taught. Nothing distracted me from the little things like those, and actual joy was easier to find.

When was the last time you were so happy that you thought that your smile would tear your face off? When was the last time that you have just danced with perfect strangers to street drumming, or tried to remember how to cartwheel outside? We don’t always make room for those things- for joy, and we don't always stop to think about what brings it within us. That half year taught me so much about standing up for myself and independence among other things, but the greatest of all things learned was that I really don’t need much to be happy.

Joy, happiness, and satisfaction are all much simpler than we think. Sometimes it is just in the value of a good relationship, or the beautiful mess of a watercolor painting. When is the last time someone was kind to you- not just NICE, but actually did something thoughtful like clean your house and leave cookies, or bring you a hibiscus plant just because they remembered how much you love them? Taking the time away from the loud buzz of tweets really reminds you of what is important, and when all of my profiles were taken away from me, that became very clear to me. I was left with only my actions. Does that scare you- to be left with just you and your daily actions? What really makes you, you? What is left when your online identity is taken away from you? Do you like what is left? Is there enough there?

I learned so much about myself, people, and relationships in general during that time. I learned that followers are not your friends. Friends are people who get to know your little sister, or go hammocking with you, or make tomato sandwiches at 9 p.m. with you, or ask you questions that might be hard to answer. They actually care about you, and if you moved to Timbuktu, they would keep in touch (maybe even send care packages too if you’re lucky). I learned how to be in the moment, and how to wait in a line without feeling like I need to be on a phone while doing so. I learned to look around and notice the little, beautiful things that pepper our everyday lives- things like stray butterflies or peach colored clouds. My half a year was one of self discovery, and my time there was not on social media, but it happened. It was unfiltered and just for me. It was a declaration of who I was and what I was. It was a look at who I am when my phone is gone. I am made up of sunrise jogs, and swinging on vines, and pizza on Thursdays, and handwritten notes, and teaching with passion, and passion fruit mousse, and those times the bus bumped by the best sea views. I am not my “likes”, my “friends” count, or how many people see my Snapchat. Living there in Brazil brought the raw me to light. As scary as that was, I fully recommend it. It doesn’t need to be six months, or Brazil, or a service mission. Get back to real life in your own way (although third world countries also offer such a great perspective), and in a way that focuses on the genuine and unfiltered things in each day. Make something of yourself, because no matter how cool your Instagram is, that does not make you a cool person. No matter how deep your tweets are, they will not make you a deep person. Get out and have a real experience, because you are a real person. Get unplugged and I promise that you will discover the best thing ever- yourself.