When you deal with chronic illness, when quality of life diminishes, every moment, every choice, every decision is weighed carefully against what is gained as opposed to what is lost. I have to make these choices on a daily basis now, because time wasted is, well, gone forever. I don't know from one day to the next, or one hour to the next, or even one MINUTE to the next exactly how good or bad I will feel or what I will be able to do or not do. My choice as to how I spend my time and who I spend it on isn't taken lightly. My family automatically gets my time and attention, with the exception of siblings.. who never treated me like family from the time I was born (another talk show). I also give my pets my attention and time. I'm not about to waste precious time on people who aren't there for me, or on those who treat me with very little (if any) respect. T is the exception because I still hold hope that he'll come around.
My time right now is divided into some unpleasant categories. I spend a lot of my day just trying to make it from one mundane and everyday task or situation to the next. There's no room for extraneous anything, no room for excess, no room for frivolity, no room for other people's drama. Again, my family can bring their heartaches and rants and whatever to me no matter what; that's called unconditional love. But mark my words, if you're absent in my life and suddenly want my attention... you better have a good reason, because the days of being a last-resort sounding board are gone. I value REAL relationships, REAL friendships. I have no room and no time for anything less.
As my entire morning was spent dealing with health issues (that I won't go into), I'm reminded how few truly good days I have. If there is even 5 minutes without pain or discomfort, that 5 minutes is golden and not to be squandered. So few people understand when I refuse to engage in their blatant drama or hateful rhetoric on Facebook, and I welcome being blocked or ignored by those who engage in those 'activities.' I simply have NO room for it in my life. And I'm not talking about normal, everyday drama that everyone has. I'm talking about people who go out of their way to start drama using overt or veiled insults, or even resorting to passive/aggressive social networking maneuvers in an attempt to irritate or otherwise provoke me. I've blocked or unfollowed a few who've done this. Thankfully, most people aren't like that.
I've actually taken to spending a LOT less time on Facebook these days and mostly engage in my quota of social networking on Twitter. When I compare the two I'm actually quite surprised at how superficial FB activity is. People simply focus on the weirdest things, ignoring anything REAL a person posts. This became SO apparent to me when I posted, of all things, a photo of several pieces of TOAST--yep, actual toasted bread (see image to left)--and a request from the poster (me, in this case) asking which people preferred. This was a re-post, btw. And you would NOT believe how many people responded to THAT post! I could hardly keep up! But if I post something real, something that has to do with current events, anything that isn't a meme or video or whatever... only a few small number of people comment. I have to wonder if people are chronically on autopilot while on FB.
How this translates into the real world is pretty easy to figure out. Most are walking around in their pink cloud and are too afraid to peek out at the absolute technicolor of real life. I don't understand this. And talk about a waste of time!
The toast experiment was telling, I have to say. VERY telling. And I also learned something valuable about the outcome.. and that is... most people really think they have forever, that they can walk around with their blinders on and not participate in real life without consequences. My health prevents me from participating in many events and activities right now, but I'm still participating in life as it is right now. I'm engaged enough to not be distracted by, of all things, a photo of toast. My time is just too precious to waste on the superficial BS that most engage in so they don't have to put too much of their time or effort into anything that doesn't serve them completely.
Can we login to life now?
