Wednesday 28 December 2016

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In my last blog post I wrote about NOT wanting to leave my "comfort zone". Today I want to write about leaving it voluntarily, which can actually be loads of fun! 

Yesterday, me and my daughter created a little Merry Christmas video. (Sorry for being two days late, I had to wait for the gym to re-open!!) I had a rather silly idea and I wanted to see if I could actually put it into practice and quite unexpectedly...I ended up having loads of fun!

So, here is my funny, belated and somewhat silly way of wishing you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY and HEALTHY New Year!



 
This video was ample proof for me that sometimes you just gotta do something out of your comfort zone, whether you are below 50 or above! There really is no age restriction on fun!

But I did also make a rather sober observation during the process of making this video. You see, this little video only took me about 15 minutes to record at the gym (perhaps not a very professional effort, but remember, it was only meant to be fun) and another 60 minutes to create and edit afterwards. However, it took me almost a whole day to share it on social media! So it appears to me that the time effort of making it stood in stark contrast to the time effort of sharing it and I just wondered...is technology saving us time or is it actually stealing it? Are we gaining time with all these new "smart phones" and "smart technology" or are we loosing it rapidly without noticing? I certainly don't want to make any judgments or point fingers at any particular social media platform, but I can't help wondering...

Wasn't all this new technology supposed to make our lives easier and perhaps even save some time? But from my observation yesterday, it appears to me that it's doing quite the opposite! Just putting this little video on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram clearly took longer than actually making it. You could certainly say that perhaps I am just not practiced enough and that I didn't need to post it on all three platforms, but I must admit that doing so was quite tempting and I can't help feeling that somewhere along the way, at the cost of my own spare time, I might have been over-communicating? What do YOU think? What are your thoughts on social media? Are you giving it as much time as you want to over this Festive Season or is it somehow "taking" more?

Perhaps my thoughts are best summarized by a greeting card that I once held in my hands. I remember it so clearly. There was a curious looking little man with blue pants and a green jersey on the front page of the card, staring up into the night sky filled with twinkling stars. But the text below the little man read as follows: "I do not believe in contacting beings in outer space..." and on the inside of the card it finished with: "...I have enough troubles staying in touch with my friends here on Earth." Don't you love it?! I think that is what I experienced yesterday. I loved making the video and communicating with the "world at large", but it left very little actual time for my own family. 

I suppose we all get to choose what we spend our time on and creating this video definitely was great fun, but it also reminded me of the value of time. So if you have better things to do - don't comment! Rather spend time with your family. But if you have a minute or two to spare, please leave me a comment below. Either way, I hope you enjoyed my video and I once again wish you...

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HEALTHY and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!


(Feel free to share my video!)