Old Habits

...are hard to break.  Isn't that the way the old adage goes?  I was once in the audience listening to a faith-based motivational speaker.  This was way back before TED Talks were the rage.  In fact, it was pretty much before social media. Damn, I'm old. Anyway, the speaker, who at the time was a friend of ours and also a pastor, (Okay, okay.  Yes, we were in church and it was a sermon) was giving his Tony Robbins-esque spiel about the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People".  In his best-selling book, Steven Covey lays out the common traits shared by those folks that other folks consider "successful". They are:

• Be Proactive
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Think First Things First
• Think Win-Win
• Seek First to Understand. Then to Be Understood.
• Synergize
• Sharpen the Saw

Even today, 30 years later, I still look at that list and roll my eyes.  Of course I didn't roll my eyes in church. That would have been sacrilege. But seriously, what the actual fuck does any of that shit mean to someone who had just given birth to her third child, was an at-home mom, and at that moment could only think ahead an hour to the ONE time a week we went out to eat?  That list, and indeed the sermon itself meant squat to someone like me.  Now if the pastor had said he was going to send 7 highly effective elves home with me to do all my housework, babysit my kids, and bring me a shit-ton of money so I could take my hard-working husband on a vacation, then yeah baby...I'm paying attention. But I digress (as you well know I do).

Facebook was a bad habit. It sucked away my life. And far from getting better over time, it got progressively and progressively worse. Especially after the 2016 election. Ugly, contentious, a scrolling cesspit of despair, racism, conspiracies, political manipulation, religious hypocrisy, overactive egoism, life fakery giving stage to the haves and rubbing salt in the wounds of the have nots.  I could go on and on.  In between, little snippets of joy.  But for me, it was and is, a dangerous, dangerous evil. Even when I was offline, it stayed in my head. Things people said. Things people didn't say. Things people should say. Things people shouldn't say. The aching nagging anguish it caused me to know that people that I once admired and cared about are not worthy of that level of respect. And the realization that even those with whom you had what you thought was a soulful bond can be truly petty. Lastly, the disappointment in knowing that I too suffer from pettiness, that I really made no difference, that my fire was all but extinguished, and that the torch I once held aloft with such immense passion was dimming with every passing comment. Facebook was a broken toilet I could not flush.  And boy, do I have lots of experience with broken toilets!

It's been six weeks today since I began treatment for excising that cancer.  I've heard over the last week or so that companies have been pulling their ads from FB and boycotting because they are protesting FB's complicity in providing a platform for hate. I'm sad that it's taken that long. But, it's good that they're finally taking a stand.  I've also noticed that more and more people are leaving the Realm of Zuckerberg.  I honestly wish I had done it sooner and stuck to my principles all the times that I'd tried to leave before. The truth is it's been really, really hard. I miss my friends. I miss seeing what is happening in their lives.  I miss that I can't share with them what is happening in mine except for speaking through Kili on HIS IG account.

Last night, I saw an InstaGram "my story" post by someone that I really adore. She's leaving FB as well, and soon to leave IG.  That wouldn't be such a big deal, but two factors make it skyrocket past "this is sad" and into the outer limits of "this sucks major".  One; Coronavirus has kept me from being in her real-life presence since sometime in late February.  Two; she and her husband are leaving California and moving across the country to New Jersey. So, there will be no goodbye hugs. We missed their socially distant going away party. Last night, on her soon-to-be-closed IG account, she posted the reasons she was leaving FB and IG.  Then, she posted where she could be "found".  She said she was using a new social media platform that was Zuck-free, profit-free, hate speech-free, socially conscientious, and well, just kinder. At first, I thought; "Dammit! Another thing this old bat has to learn?"  But, Charlie and I have been on a journey of freeing ourselves of flotsam and jetsam lately. So I figured if I can learn how to use an iPhone (still iffy), put ROKU in more than one room, invite Alepsa into my home, get YouTube TV and eliminate cable thanks to Ryan and Averie, then I can sure as hell add learning how to MeWe.  So, I got on there and went looking for my friend Corri before she pulled the plug.  SUCCESS! She's stuck with me now. She's in my phone, on my blog, and I've stalked her on MeWe. Done deal.

Back in 1989 when I was that thrice-tired new mom sitting in that church listening to our pastor friend preach about changing bad habits and gaining effective ones, one thing stood out to me that I remember to this day.  He said it takes about two weeks of daily repetition of the good to make it a habit.  Two weeks of abstaining from the bad and implementing the good in order for your brain to begin the process of leaning toward making the choice for the good thing and making that good thing the habit. That may be true for some, but in my world that's pure bollocks.  It's been six weeks off of FB and I STILL want to sign on to FB.  Other than this last effort to take some people with me, I'm not coming back. Last night made that pretty clear to me. Unless a lot of things change in the pollution that is Facebook, I can and I will live without it. It isn't that important to my life.

Bad habit:  Smoking.  I quit on December 22, 2017. This may be a shocker to some of you. I smoked for many years. I miss the social aspect of that too. But I don't miss the hiding, the stinking, the way my lungs felt, and the HUNDREDS of dollars I spent.  So many vacations could have been taken with the money I burned away.  I'm still angry at myself about that.

Bad habit:  Meat consumption.  I quit eating meat on September 16, 2016.  Yes, I've had a few setbacks, but no regrets.  This was harder than quitting smoking and had even MORE of a social impact (negatively) than that did. I think folks were weirdly more upset about me quitting eating meat than they were about me quitting smoking...and they let me know it.  Long story, read it on my blog.

Bad habit:  Quitting Facebook.  Harder than the prior two put together.  I'm separated from friends who live their entire lives on Facebook. All three things I've listed are very very social activities.  Smoking, Eating, Facebook. Especially in the middle of a pandemic.  All that is left is drinking alcohol.  And if you think I'm giving that up, you're drunk and should go/stay home. It's fucking hard. So don't think for one minute that I enjoy it.  FOMO is my life, and now it's a total reality.

 I am glad though that I was able to connect with Corri and find something new that feels safer for my psyche and kinder for my soul. For the moment. Still, I'm not yet brave enough to cut the IG cord right now. I'm keeping it Kili's for the time being. With an occasional hijacking of self-indulgence. So if you want to find me there, I'm @lifewithkili.

I'll end this sermon of my own by doing what Corri did.  I'm going to remind you again that this is where you can find me. If you ever want to say hi, I'm still here tending bar and baking cookies.  At least I'm trying to relearn to bake the cookies.  The bartending I've got down to a science. Science is good. And maybe, just maybe, you'll want to wean yourself of participating in the Zuckerberg experiment too. If you do, check out MeWe and hit me up (Puamakana H).  In my world, it would be a much happier place if we all went back to blogging. But that's me.  We can't go back to the age of innocence.  We just have to play the hand we're dealt.  It's a gamble, which I'm told is a bad habit. Give me two weeks. I've walked away from harder obstacles than a card table in this life.