Disconnecting Yourself from the World

Disconnecting yourself is one of the keys to happiness. Life demands too much from us. Society doesn’t want us to be good at what we do, it wants us to be the best. What we have determines who we are. If we have a lot of money, a big house, a nice car, and an amazing body, we’re much more worthy. Society has very high expectations.

This is why we need to escape every once. Escaping for a while allows us to take that weight off our shoulders and slow down our pace. Nevertheless, the problem is that disconnecting yourself from everything can be hard.

All of society’s expectations are unrealistic and disproportionate. They’re the result of an increasingly consumerist and selfish society, where the only thing that seems to matter is our ability to produce. If we produce more, we’re worth more. In contrast, if we produce less, we’re worth less. It’s that simple.

Give me a moment

How many times have we told someone to give us a moment? Dozens, maybe hundreds of times! There are so many demands that we sometimes have to say “Enough!” and take a moment to breathe.

You urgently need to disconnect yourself from everything. However, this can be very difficult. Your father says something to you, then your mother, friends, colleagues, classmates and so on.  The media is also constantly bombarding us with information.

Everything is information and almost all of it requires our attention. Do this. Do that. Buy this cell phone to be happy. Buy this perfume if you want to be attractive. Get this car to feel important. If you’re not number one, you’re nobody.

Television commercials are always full of nice homes. Similarly, people on television shows have huge houses and are all really happy. Everything seems to be going well for them. Little by little, we start believing all of this.

Social media is also full of false information. People only upload what they want you to see, the image they want to show you. Those images are always as perfect as they can be. We end up believing that everybody is living a fairytale life except us. Furthermore, we compare ourselves to them and our self-esteem comes crashing down. If you’re not able to use social media healthily, perhaps disconnecting yourself for a while is not a bad idea.

Disconnecting yourself: Something that’s necessary

Disconnecting yourself from everything is very necessary. What’s more, it’s fundamental for a healthy mind. We need at least an hour a day for ourselves. During this time, we can disconnect and not have to worry about anything. We can take this time at night when we get home from work or in the afternoons.

Sit down on the couch or go out for a walk. Focus on the present moment. Observe everything around you without judging anything. For example, if you go outside and see some cars, don’t think whether they’re ugly or nice-looking. If you see people, avoid thinking about whether they’re good looking or not. Just observe.

Why is it important not to judge? Judging involves positive or negative assessments. These assessments produce emotional states that can vary in intensity. It’s very important to maintain emotional balance. However, if you judge others, it’ll be very hard for you to feel serene.

Our mind needs rest. We’re an enraged ocean with 30-foot waves. However, we must learn how to be a peaceful sea. If we have peace of mind, we’ll be able to take life on differently. What’s more, we’ll begin to realize that those external demands are artificial.

Inside each of us

Jon Kabat-Zinn tells us that we have negative thoughts that create our own suffering. When we take our time to look inside, we realize that, as Dr. Kabat-Zinn says, we really do have very negative thoughts. We also realize that most of them stem from social demands that don’t have any real meaning.

When you start disconnecting yourself from everything and begin to connect with your inner self, you’ll become aware of the importance of self-knowledge. You’ll realize that happiness isn’t found in unrealistic goals and that it’s actually inside each one of us.