Turn Off Everything, Embrace Everything

It wasn’t long ago we discussed leaving social media. But its hand reaches far and wide outside of the wicked web it spins. Notifications are a wretched anxiety producer, whether you have a lack of them, or too many, they will never let your mind rest from the fact you might be racking them up.

When you vanquish demons of the social, they can reverberate and take shape in many forms. One being an unquestionable red light blinking in the darkness, like an eye manifesting to look at you, begging you to come closer. That blinking red dot being your notifications and your phone flashing to tell you – you’ve got mail!

When leaving social media, there will be temptations. Similar to vices like quitting chocolate, someone will try to offer a taste and you will try your best to ignore. Like social media, you know it’s wrong for you, but you may slip up and bite a chunk out of that piece of cacao.

We all know it’s bad for our mental health and our health, a sign of that is how corporations will jump on the band-wagon to stake their claim for a slice and exploit you and your data. And so will people. Especially if they have a bigger addiction to it than you. They will make claims such as ‘maybe you need to learn how to control it?’, which is a really lame excuse for not admitting they have a problem themselves. If their account is full of selfies or food then, my friend, they have a problem.

Outside of the matrix, there lies a breadcrumb you don’t want to collect, and that is email newsletters. So, no matter how attractive or helpful they may seem, you need to unsubscribe from them. There are many services out there claiming to do this for you. But ignore them. A good old-fashioned hunt will do the trick.

All you need to do, is head to your email account, perform a search for ‘unsubscribe’, then navigate to the (usually) bottom of the email and follow this one step…

1. Click unsubscribe

That’s it. You’re done.

Remember, it’s a marketing trick to make each newsletter seem attractive. Ignore it and impulsively click, click, click unsubscribe on all of them.

We think by having access to everything, that everything in life will come to us. We could not be more wrong. The important notifications are the ones we engage with in life, away from a screen. Lemons don’t grow on social media, they grow on trees.