Summer Hours
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of June, I realized that it actually was June, which meant that we were right in the middle of summer. While the actual first day of Summer isn’t until June 21, in the South, we don’t wait that long.
If you live anywhere near where I live, then you’ll also agree that this June already feels like August. But I digress.
My realization made me stop and want to be intentional about doing things that made me FEEL like it was summer. I hadn’t gotten there at that point. I know I say this ALL the time, but I absolutely love summertime. I didn’t realize until I was serching on this site how many “summer” type posts I’ve written. And here is another one.
I posted about own way of getting that summer feel by instigating my own “Summer Hours” on Instagram. Here it is.
The other “Summer” thing I am trying, is to say goodbye to Instagram for the month of July. If you happen to follow me you may have seen that. I’m sure that doesn’t affect you a twit as it’s not like I am a big Insta anything. I’ve spoken on several occasions about my love/hate relationship with Instagram and the well-known affects - negative ones at that - that it has on our health and wellbeing. So, while it’s a wonderful platform to get a message across, hopefully, educational, inspiring or at least useful, i’m not always sure that positive outweighs the negative.
I’ve decided to remove myself from that platform for the month of July. I want to see how much more I can accomplish in a day, how much mindless scrolling I was ACTUALLY doing, if I could go back to using my time in a more enjoyable, productive and SMART way. The way I did before I had that little square on my phone!
Embarresingly, it’s only been 2 days and I found myself reaching for my phone - for what? That quick, immediate dopomine hit. I know it. It is powerful people!
Have I missed going to the scroll for a little bit of distraction from a boring or confusing work problemI? A little bit of the uplifting inspiration that comes across my feed,? The new workout move to try? If I’m honest, I likely have. But I know I’ve really missed the silly dog videos that seem to take up FAR TOO MUCH TIME when I could definitely be doing something with that time that gets completely lost. (Those can actually do serve a good purpose folks!)
But I do not miss seeing and hearing the same content that seems to be provided by most all of the accounts I follow. Perhaps because the algorithm knows exactly what to feed me. I also do not miss the ads and content that is forced in my feed that the algorithm determines I need. to see, consume and preferably purchase. I think it will be good for me to NOT be influenced for the month.
So,I am instigating little, intentional acts and experiences added to the day, where and when I can, and going back to my pre-Instagram days.
Savoring this short little season.
Oh, and here are some other summer reads:
What about you? What are you doing to savor your summer?
And will you please send me some silly dog videos or whatever you think I’m missing out that I absolutely must see?!?