It is a little too early in the year to talk about Christmas, but for this topic I believe I can take the liberty to at least quote a line, albeit prematurely. One of my favourite stories while growing up was Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. For those of you who do not know the story, it is about a greedy hardhearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge who has an eerie yet impactful experience on Christmas Eve. He wakes up to meet three ghosts, and each of these meetings leads him to becoming a changed man. I will not delve deep into the story, but one of the lines from the story that made an ever-lasting impact on me was said by the first ghost who visits Scrooge:
"I wear the chain I forged in life," the Ghost says. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."
Habits are a chain we forge in life - a chain that can pull us down, or lift us up. It is very important to know that we ourselves are the ones holding us back in life. We make these chains – these limitations, these good and bad habits, these vices and virtues that can make or break us. We as individuals are responsible for where our lives go, and our habits play one of the most important roles in this process. In this context, what the Ghost told Scrooge makes a lot of sense – we make the chains link by link, yard by yard, of our own free will, and wear them of our own free will too. Does it not follow then, that we alone have the power to break out of these chains as well?
It is a challenge to not sound preachy while talking about this topic, but I myself am not perfect. I have my own fair share of vices too, some that have stayed with me for as long as I can remember, some that I have managed to shun, and some that are still WIP. One such vice that I had was my addiction to social media. I didn’t realise it for the longest time, until it slowly started consuming me.
I am a part of the generation that witnessed the rise of social media – from chat rooms to Orkut profiles to ‘The Facebook’, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder and what not. As my internet connection moved from a creaky dial-up connection to noiseless Wi-Fi, I too graduated from using Yahoo Messenger at the end of my hectic day of IIT-JEE preparation to scrolling on my FB/Twitter feed almost every now and then, thanks to the migration of social media on my hand-held smartphone. Needless to say, the minutes I spent on social media snowballed into hours and there was not a single second of the day when I was not connected to the rest of the world.
While it started as a fun way to stay in touch with friends without having to go anywhere (how come I never saw what was so wrong with it?!), it took a few years for it to completely take over my day. I would spend countless hours wanting to know who is doing what, who is travelling where, who is getting promoted at work, who is getting married etc. It did not strike me about how knowing about “current affairs” (not the general knowledge usage) added absolutely no value to my life.
In 2009, Facebook introduced the ‘Like’ button. Who would have thought, that years later this innocent introduction would hijack half the brains in the smartphone-wielding world? It extended to Instagram, Twitter, Quora and even LinkedIn, and soon I, like millions across the world let my day get controlled by the number of likes my posts got – the pictures I posted, the poems and articles I wrote. It frustrated me to see everyone have such happening lives as compared to the seemingly dreary life that I led. What I did not realise then was that people post only the good things in their lives on social media, sometimes repeatedly from some past event. It became a part of my daily routine to check all my social media accounts to check ‘if someone liked my stuff’. It even started affecting my general knowledge. I could add very little value to group discussions about current events, business and science – which I had absolutely owned a few years earlier.
It was then that I decided to take the decision of going totally off all social media. Except for WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Quora, it took me barely five minutes to mercilessly delete all the accounts I had on social media. Believe me, life has only gone uphill from there. It feels like I have freed half of my day for effective utilization of time – for some sensible reading, exercise, spending time with my family, and my hobbies too, that thankfully have nothing to do with the internet or social media. While I still spend time scrolling up and down on my phone, it is mostly through informative articles and debates about current events, business concepts and as a guilty indulgence – my favourite books/movies too. It has been a couple of years since I went off social media, and I do not feel like going back, in fact I am better off without being there.
What helped me first and foremost for overcoming this vice was to accept it the way it was. Denial is the enemy of overcoming our vices. In order to start the process, we need to accept – “This is what is wrong with me and I ought to change it”. That is the first step. The second step is to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. There are no brownie points for being hard on ourselves beyond a point. After these steps, it is often a breeze if our resolve is strong to give up our vices. The third step is to work consciously towards keeping the promise that we have made to ourselves. Sometimes telling our friends and family to remind us to abide by this promise helps us overcome our vices.
In the end what really matters is how strong our resolve is, and how badly we want to have a better life. Remember, the chains we wear are the ones we have forged ourselves. And it is completely in our hands to break free from them.
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