the other day i posted about wondering where all my time goes. how i always run out of it. and i came up with a few very plausible reasons. and i have decided that the biggest problem is:
yesterday i looked at the time and i had been on gchat, outlook, pinterest, facebook, and blogger for a total of about 3 hours. granted, i was doing some very productive things. i checked out the new pictures of my sister's kiddos. i messaged a couple friends and i found some great recipes. but it was embarrassing to see how much time i had just been sitting on my bum looking at stuff. normally i do not sit in one spot that long, but total time in a day, i would say i average fairly lengthy amounts of time in front of the computer.
this awkward realization reminded me of the talks that prophets and apostles have given on veering away from worldly distractions. i actually went to lds.org and searched for talks on "distraction". over 300 results (funny that i used the internet again...). that probably means that i am not the only person that falls victim to vortex of pinning and liking. there was a lesson called "distraction unto destruction" and it went over all the examples in the scriptures of the righteous becoming distracted until they were oblivious to their oncoming attacks. there were a lot of examples...i also came across this quote by boyd k. packer:
"At the temple the dust of distraction seems to settle out, the fog and the haze seem to lift, and we can 'see' things that we were not able to see before and find a way through our troubles that we had not previously known."
and boy did i feel guilty. i could have done a lot of temple work in the time that i was sitting around looking at social media. not saying that it is all bad, they provide fantastic avenues for communicating with friends, sharing ideas, and good laughs. the church even uses youtube for the mormon messages. but there are so many naughty and mind numbing things on there too... so i have now resolved to try harder to keep track of how much time i dedicate to facebook stalking vs. reading my scriptures. or blogging vs writing in my journal. or youtubing when i could skype with my family.
it is hard because it is so habitual to have 7 tabs open in my browser and to constantly be looking at things. the other day i noticed that it had been a while since i was really absorbed in a book. and i realized that was probably because my laptop is on my bedside table. so maybe it is time to give princess shiba a little break...
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