How life goes on around us unnoticed

Vrbnik, Adriatic sea

I was sitting in this same apartment a year ago, looking through my scheduled tweets. Caught up in the social media game, short-lived content, daily interactions, and using the platform at certain times, almost religiously.

Gotta get in a few replies to warm up the algorithm before you post!

I had my phone with me all the time, and I was subconsciously thinking about is it the right time to pull it and check my notifications.

This summer was something else.

My life took a U-turn a few months ago. More precisely, I took a U-turn. No outside event or force caused this. I simply forgot how living without the burden of producing content feels. And the more I did these breaks, the more I liked them.

Leaving is never easy.

I had some of these breaks earlier, and recovering from them is challenging. Algorithms bury you for inactivity, and you must work hard to recover. And even when you feel things are where they were, you suddenly disappear from people’s feeds for days and feel you’re wasting your time. Then, eventually, if you push through, you recover. Staying on top of the game feels easier than occasionally restarting it.

But there’s one thing I never tried.

Pushing through in the opposite direction and lengthening my breaks. I always returned, so I only experienced the bad consequences of missed social media time, but I never left long enough (in the past two years) to experience the good things that come from not doing it at all.

I knew that severing all bonds from one day to another is one of the most challenging ways to escape an addiction.

So, at the beginning of July, we drove 500km and stayed beside a beautiful lake for a few days. I didn’t tweet for three days. But I learned to handle a stand-up paddling board pretty well, did some kayaking, and woke up at 5 AM, this time, not to schedule my daily content but to spot birds in the middle of a national park.

My days were so filled that I didn’t think once that I should probably tweet this or that or share a picture with my followers.

A month after we returned, we left for Stockholm, and here we are at the Adriatic Sea. I probably can’t count the things that happened to me in this past month, but:

• visited two new cities, Stockholm and Warsaw

• had trouble with the airline and an unexpected layover in a fantastic hotel

• kayaked in Stockholm

• lots of Thai food, we are hooked

• worked from coffee shops, experienced how digital nomading would feel like

• did climbing for the first time. It’s addictive.

• did stargazing with an amateur group of astronomers

• saw the Andromeda Galaxy

• saw solar flares

• saw Beyonce. Although I’m not a fan, seeing such a performance was unique

• met with one of my Twitter friends IRL

Life is always happening around you, and it’s up to us to tune in or tune out.

Sure, it’s different when you make a living from it. To me, it wasn’t giving anything financially, but it started to take too much. I get it; the attention economy is scalable, but it’s practically a different form of employment.

At this point, I’d rather give a new customer a refund and get on with my business than lean in the direction the winds of algorithmic change are blowing.

While I was producing content, I considered everything that happened outside of my business, social, and personal life, mostly empty or rarely filled with anything I’d do with excitement. Before, I was excited to post tweets, scroll Twitter, and write my newsletters. Now I’m excited because I have plenty of time to fill with activities that I never did before.

Do you feel like you’re on the verge of becoming addicted? How do you shut out all the noise?

Stay safe out there, and remember to have fun.

- Akos