I thought February was my toughest month yet, but March is turning out to be tougher than anything. I am dealing with some personal issues and hence have lost the will to write. I have ideas, but I don't feel like writing. But then, the only way to keep writing is to somehow keep writing. So, let's try.
February did turn out to be one of the toughest months of my life. But not the way I thought it would be. The self defeating chain of thoughts started somewhere in the middle of February and I haven't been able to come out of it yet. But, not going into those things, here's a review of how February went.
- No Newspapers : This was really difficult. I have done this before and it's never easy to leave newspapers, especially at breakfast. Family didn't help either. They would put the newspaper right at the sofa table. Damn you family. At times, I would end up "mistakenly" looking at a few headlines here and there. But 99% I managed without it. Result : I didn't know mostly what was happening in the world and India, especially politics and I could care less. 90+% of news is just depressing. I felt good trading bad news it at the expense of sounding ignorant.
- No TV : This was difficult too. Again because I need something to watch during dinner, at the end of a hard day of work. And to make matters worse since I had no control, family would watch their stupid Saas-Bahu serials at that time. Damn you family.
- No Blogs : This turned out to be easy actually. No logging into Feedly. No checking blogs. Although I did make 2-3 exceptions for friends. I would always do that.
- No Twitter : Easy Peasy.
- No Instagram : Easier Than above.
- No Pocket : Easy again. Although now I am struggling to come up to speed with so many articles to be read.
- No Movies : I haven't watched a movie this year yet.
- No TV series episodes : I did miss some of the series, but then it wasn't that difficult either.
- No YouTube/Vimeo/Vine : I watched a few YouTube videos. Less than half a dozen I believe. They were inspiring and I learned a little too, so I won't apologize.
- No Music : By far the hardest item in this list. Haven't attempted going without music before. This month made me realize how much I enjoy music. And it's not like I went without music completely. People nearby would listen to music and I won't stop them doing that. Sometimes I liked what they listened and sometimes I hated. But I wasn't allowed to do anything about it. The promise was to not let myself listen to music voluntarily. At least on 4 points I almost, almost picked up my ear phone. But I am fiercely proud I resisted listening to music for the whole month. Yeah! Although.... I did listen to a song composed by a friend. 5 times. Again no apologies for friends.
- No Podcast (except if I create one of my own): Don't listen to too many podcasts so wasn't a problem. I did listen to half of an audiobook though. Technically not a podcast but a book. Alas, no podcast of own created this month as well.
- No Video Games : I am not a big fan of video games, so no problems here either.
Whatsapp is what I gave up trying to control, on day one itself. In fact I think February is when I used Whatsapp more than usual. For reasons totally unintended though, I am going without Whatsapp for the whole month this March. A part of me wants to go back, but the other part hates it right now. For almost 2 weeks of this Month I also went without phone (which was fun actually!).
So, what was the use? What did I achieve doing all this?
- Well I did keep promises, but it's disappointing no one really took that "broken promises" post seriously.
- I slept more.
- I did read more than January but again not as much as I would like. May be I setting my expectations too high on reading resolution.
- Didn't write much. But wrote some pretty good articles I thought.
The experiment was overall a success I would say. I did prove to myself (and it was only about myself) that I can live without most of the things that people like me think they "can't live without". Willpower? You have more than you think you have.
Would I attempt this again? May be. No plans right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment