Making Peace with the Reality

A recent loss of life, the son of a friend disturbed me to the pits. He was 28, had been suffering from depression and eventually couldn't deal with it anymore. I am reluctant even get into what happened but it was mighty disturbing and had me by the hooks mentally and emotionally for the last few days.

How can somebody be so fed up? How can somebody be ready to give up? How can somebody else not see it, avoid it, stop it?

I can't wonder what the family would be going through when I as a bystander am so disturbed. I look at my kids, what could ever lead them to such a situation? What can I do now and keep doing to not let it reach there? Psychological diseases are difficult tackle, its not something you can just cure with a few pills. There is more to it, and definitely requires more patience. If it prolongs for too long, then it just becomes a reality one has to make peace with. But then, in that situation you make peace with something which actually needs more attention and continuous close monitoring.

Just had to write this one out to get this out of my system. Pray for the departed soul and for the family. Difficult times, these are whether we look with the macro lens or the micro lens. Our society is headed towards the end, I keep feeling this. We have just got it all so wrong.

The Social Media De-Clutter Project (Update)

In April'15, I initiated the Social Media De-Clutter Project and found a lot of peace and suddenly, "extra time" to do things I could use to do things I want to do.

I have recently taken the next big lead and I have deleted by "Twitter" account also. I realized, after cleansing out Facebook from my life, the people who still wanted to keep in touch or I wanted to keep in touch with, found me on WhatsApp. So from Facebook to whatsapp, not really a de-clutter one would think but in my view, it still cuts out the noise. I can choose to leave groups if I want, etc. However, this meant I can stop "following" friends on Twitter.

Twitter then became my news reader and inspirational quotes system, I didn't mind that until I got back to using FlipBoard on my mobile (I just bought a Nexus 6). This has changed everything. I had quite using Flipboard for Zite and then Newsstand but since Flipboard has bought Zite and with that the key feature of "show me more of this and less of this", I think FlipBoard is the perfect aggregator in this day and age. I had no use for Twitter, this is out of my life.

I have deleted my accounts on technorati, stumbleupon, blip.fm.

I have a much cleaner system now. Here is where I am and I think I am going to stay here. What I have convinced myself though is that I don't need to be everywhere and I can get rid of whatever I want from my life with no strings attached. I feel empowered again.

1. LinkedIn for Professional Networking and Professional Social Media. The new mobile interface is amazing, I am very comfortable in this space and this one I am going to keep.
2. Flipboard for all the news, updates, quotes (even twitter feeds, if I want) etc. Love the interface and the flip to the next update seems very intuitive. Having said that, the "show me more of this and less of this" works wonders as well. This is also a good place to create your "collections" as Magazines. I got three now, "UTP Learns Leadership" which contains all important articles I want to remind myself of as I am on that journey to learn leadership. "UTP Recommends Books" is a magazine of links to book recommendations, I am going to do more and more of book reading with all the extra time I have at my hand. "UTP's Pakistan" is a magazine which collects good things about Pakistan and inspiration for Pakistanis. I just wanted to have something like this. All 3 magazines are public.
3. The UTP Blog for my random vomit of so called intellectual thought outburst. I need that outlet and instead of that being in a less than 150 word twitter message, I would rather blog to do justice to my thoughts. I am not here often but this blog is here to stay
4. Facebook Pages - I got "UTP Mentors" which was something I wanted to move to LinkedIn but unable to as its not an official company. This is my corporate social responsibility initiative which attends to my Maslow's "Self-Actualization" part on the Hierarchy of Needs. Helping others with something I am good at. I am not good at a lot of things but I am good at mentoring people and learning more about human behavior and thought in the process. I got the "The UTP Page" which is an aggregator of all things UTP, I think this will go soon as I don't see a lot of value in this aggregator page. I also got "UTP's Journey of Faith" which is a religious page on things I learn from the Quran and just put it there. Not very active, but it is there for any updates that follow.
5. Whatsapp for those close connections who want to keep in touch, truly speaking, I use it for family only. In groups of friends, I am a silent reader.
6. Skype for family connection back home, basically mom and dad and siblings.
7. I still have Google+, which will likely go. I think its only there so I don't have to create separate accounts for other websites. You need one openID to use everywhere, losing Facebook and Twitter, this one I will keep just for this purpose. The interface is much nicer in my view than a twitter or facebook also.
8. My YouTube account still exists. I have been vaguely consdering Vlogging, lets see if I see a reason I need to get into that. I am a bit shy for the camera but I guess that should remain for any public appearances I do which are recorded and I want to share (public or family).

So I ask myself, have I really de-cluttered? All I have really done is get rid of 2 key components, Facebook and Twitter and replaced them with whatsapp and FlipBoard. I guess more relevant stuff and less intrusive. I am still connected to the world, but now its more like I feel in more control of what comes in my face and can decide when I want to interact or not.