Ilustrator: Andreja karba

 I cannot recall the last time I had fun daydreaming! Simply hanging out by the fire, with my spiced Christmas tea, looking at the snow falling and dreaming... I used to daydream a lot. It was my way of having fun. Paradoxically it made my life real, interesting, and beautiful. 
I would love to get my daydreaming back!

Firstly, I had to admit to myself that now I daydream on my social media accounts. However, that does not make my life more real, interesting, or beautiful. Sure the content makes me laugh, sometimes angry, and more often I am just shocked! It is pathetic how I incorporate the content I see on social media in my reality and even in my dreams. 

Secondly, I had to understand why I did not want to daydream by myself. Why I needed my smartphone to pick my dreams for me. Honestly, it happened without me realizing… slowly and gradually, I guess. It started with constant calls, short messages, and emails. Then the headphones the music and the video content. Soon, somebody asks you for your social media name: 
‘You don’t have an account? Don’t you know that it is crucial for the business today? Everybody has it! It is where everything happens!’ 

So in twenty years of mobile phones, I ended up with my smartphone all the time attached to me, for safety measures and because, apparently, everything happens in my smartphone. Without almost realizing it, I found myself following social accounts about ‘crazy-comic-exhausted moms trying to survive the day with small children’. At first, it got some laughs out of me and I had proof I was not alone in this similar situation. There were moms all around the world sharing the same crazy 24-hour routine. The mother-victim of a crazy family dynamic. 
But, is it so? 

What are we doing by sharing and posting content on social media? Are we giving ourselves excuses for not asking for help and interacting with others in real life? Or is it the exhibitionism, the appearance online the only reason why we would post just about anything? Not to mention the teenage voyeurism? Does this relax us? 

I was surprised to learn how people use social media, especially mothers and children, teenagers included.  I am no exception. Honestly, I do not know how it happened. Why did the social account of an anxious, wrecked mother of five get my attention? Not only that, I internalized the behavior I watched on social accounts and became a stressed, neurotic burned-out mother. 
I started to reflect on the content of the social media I was following. I had become a walking social account. 

Who woke me up from this distorted reality I was living in? My loving husband, of course. Our men are far more down-to-earth, caring, and loving than we realize and they need to see us happy.

Very simple. 
He helped me realize that I had three options: 
1. I could continue down this road and accept the consequences. On one condition, I am not a victim of a situation that I created.
2. I could shut down all my social media accounts and start playing piano again. 
or
3. I could start using my time on social media more constructively and consciously. I could use my social accounts to sell books, express myself, follow only content that makes me laugh, learn about what will be the next travel destination, get some good natural remedies, etc. 
I opted for the third option and my life got enormously better. Simply by filtering what I consume online, I got my daydreaming back! 
I will end with a quote from Delmore Schwartz: “In dreams begin responsibilities”.