Self-Reflection: Drop The Crutches & Facades To Return To Humanity

Below are some introspective snippets of advice after I got locked out of my building from 3AM-8AM in 22 degrees, plenty of time to think.

Being in my tiny freezing cold marble foyer one glass door from warmth was annoying, and waiting 5 hours for just one tenant or delivery man to enter or leave was worse.

I stood, leaned, squatted in a catcher’s crouch, and sat on the frigid floor. I think I fell asleep for 15 minutes once, but a newspaper slammed into the door and flopped down to wake me up.

Reflecting with no distractions helped me forget about not being able to feel my feet since drumming and calf raises weren’t working. I think that being strong inside and out helped me stay level about the situation. I had a good leg workout earlier that day, so I tried to think about building myself up more. While I wanted to not miss anyone in my building and be tough, I also used my head and went to a diner for 30 minutes around 6:30AM to warm my feet. They were getting bad.

Speaking of reflections, I couldn’t think of a good image for this post from the web, so in the spirit of my message below, I took my own.

Almost ready for baseball.

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In the silence of the night, I started to think about survival skills if the situation happened to be more dire, and a bit deeper about why I feel many people have lost touch with reality. I’ve had my moments, but I generally feel that I’m self-aware to avoid many of society’s pitfalls.

To keep my thought process flowing, here are some statements that come to mind as I sit exhausted at the start of my Mom’s 30-guest birthday party.

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• Treating symptoms doesn’t make you healthier.

• Googling everything doesn’t make you smarter.

• Social media doesn’t make you more popular.

• Cell phones don’t make you more connected.

• Texting doesn’t make relationships stronger.

• Telling the truth most of the time doesn’t make you honest.

• Financial wealth doesn’t equate to wealth of knowledge.

• Materialism doesn’t solve our material needs.

• Photoshop and filters don’t make YOU look better.

• Ingesting food-grade chemicals and artificial ingredients doesn’t mean it’s food. You are what you eat.

• Unnatural products riddled with chemicals and harmful ingredients don’t give you the natural results they advertise.

• Television programming is exactly that,programming.

• Evian bottles water is naive spelled backwards.

• Steemit is not Steem. (Had to.)

• Progress is not a concept. Progress is consistent action to improve onseself and those around them, mind and matter.

• Effort = results.

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The list goes on and on. You get the drift. People need to wake the hell up before they lose themselves.

Please add some of your own.

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I truly hope more people can wake up to recognize that debilitating distractions and technology dumb us down, manipulate our minds, and ruin our ability to find happiness and intelligence within.

I’m concerned because those who are weak, lazy, lost, blind and/or easily manipulated will pass those traits down to their children to perpetuate the problem.

At the very least, they’ll lead lives that are unfulfilling and they might not even realize it until it’s too late.

Wake up,
@steemmatt