Two Things that Transformed me in Twenty Twenty

(I don't often talk about things that I struggle with, but I definitely think that vulnerability is important. So today I just wanted to share one part of my story. I hope that you'll enjoy reading about it and maybe it'll help you!)

Let me start by saying that at the start of 2020, I didn't realize that I had a problem.

It didn't really occur to me that the first and last thing that I would look at everyday -- was my phone. It didn't occur to me how problematic it was that after I post something on my instagram story, I'd check it like every half an hour to see who's seen my story. Sometimes if there were multiple parts to the story, I would compare how many people saw the first 15-second-section to how many people made it till the end. I guess that was kind of my form of a retention metric (?) If a large percentage of people watched it all the way, I'd think oh this was a good story. When I posted a picture, I would definitely pay attention to how many people liked it.

Aside from obsessing over people's reactions to my posts, I was also just addicted to consuming information from social media. Even though, to be honest, it didn't bring me much joy. There have been moments where I'm trying to work on an assignment, and I reach a difficult part. And then my hand would just naturally gravitate towards my phone and I'd pick it up in a manner as instinctive as breathing. It's as if my thumb has a mind of its own and it somehow always finds its way to instagram and keeps tapping through the stories or scrolling down the feed. You probably also share this experience of how one minute becomes fifteen minutes, and then it becomes a couple of hours of just mindlessly scrolling through this little lightbox that practically becomes glued to your hand.

And I guess the worst thing was I would always try to rationalize my behavior. Like oh, it's inevitable that these numbers would create certain sense of comparison. And I just have to have social media because I need to connect with my friends. Oh, I'm letting myself be 'inspired' by these influencers who are living great lives. Ohh I've worked hard on this assignment for so long (it might just be like fifteen minutes), I deserve a break.

Quite frankly, I think that our generation has normalized this kind of behavior. I didn't really think that I had much of a problem because it seemed that everyone else shares a similar lifestyle. I didn't think that it was possible to live another way. Or if it was possible, it was only for those radical people who probably don't own a phone in the first place.

But now, in the last days of 2020, I'm looking at myself currently and I realize that over the past year, I have actually dropped so many of these unhealthy habits that I've mentioned. And in the place of these obsessive behaviors, I just have this great sense of peace to know that I am not enslaved by my phone. If there is something in my life that excites me, like a beautiful sunrise or a good meal that I've cooked, I can actually just snap a picture, post it, and then put my phone away. Sometimes I even forget that I've posted it until a lovely friend replies to my story and I can enjoy the fact that social media gives us the power to share moments in our lives.

In retrospect, I realize that my obsession was really holding me back from being at peace with myself, with people around me, and with God. I've learned that it is possible to have a phone and not be obsessed with it.

And, wow, in the past 9 months I have been sleeping so well at night! Like it is unreal. It sounds like a trivial thing to be celebrating sleeping well but I think getting a good night's sleep every night literally turns your life around.

Now at this point you are probably thinking, "okay, okay, we get it, just get to the two things that transformed you already!" But before I get into that I just wanted to share some thoughts about the reason I have been so obsessed with my phone. Like just why? What is the root cause? Because you see all these tips on social media (ironically) like ohh "give yourself a digital detox day" or just "don't let the numbers define you". But to be honest I never found those helpful. It's like telling someone who is already sad to stop being sad. Treating the symptoms rather than causes.

One day when I read these verses from Deuteronomy 28, I realized how accurately they described my life (these verses are talking about people who worship idols of wood and stone):

You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.

In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

This was me every day!!! Like I would wake up, and I know that I have stuff to do but I would just pick up my phone and wish that time would pass by quicker so I could go to sleep. But by night time, I'd be filled with this nebulous guilt and then I would try to be productive for a bit and then fail.

And then! When it started getting late, I wouldn't want to go to sleep until I'm really really tired. Why? Partly because I felt like I haven't been productive enough, but also partly because I was afraid to be alone with my thoughts. I was afraid of my own self-doubt, of my own fear, of my own emptiness and lack of purpose. So I would keep scrolling on my phone, aggressively, until my eyelids started drooping. But I think by that point it is already wayyyy past the time that I should have gone to bed.

So I guess that was when I realized that the cause of my unhealthy habits was the fact that I idolized instagram. I let instagram tell me who I am. I let instagram dictate my joy. I let instagram tell me what is important and what isn't. I let instagram tell me what I should aim to pursue in my life.

And the most dangerous part was that this was all subconscious. It's not until now that I'ves stopped doing this anymore that I realize I have been doing it this whole time.

And I have been using instagram as an example because that is what I personally struggled with the most but it can go for any social media platform, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok... These platforms can become idols of wood and stone in the sense that they make empty promises. They exploit the desires that we all have. We seek connection and affirmation, and in this generation, social media seems like the easiest place to find that. We latch onto these platforms because, just for a fleeting moment, they fill the void that's inside of us.

This quickly becomes problematic because these social media platforms don't always deliver what they promise to offer. The fullness of human interaction cannot be captured by a few photos that show the most glamorous snapshots of people's lives.

Also, we often use 'connection' as justification but this masquerades all of the bad things about social media. What bad things, you may ask? Well, just one place where you can learn more about that is the documentary The Social Dilemma. If you haven't seen yet, here's a little synopsis from Wikipedia, and what I particularly wanted to highlight is "It goes into depth on how social media's design is meant to nurture an addiction."

So yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the reason for my addiction was the fact that I was just insecure with myself and with my purpose. But maybe it's not particularly helpful for me to just say that idolizing social media is bad, because that doesn't really solve the issue of where we are supposed to seek that sense of connection or where should seek knowledge about what is important in life. And this finally brings me to the part where I talk about what has transformed me.

As I've mentioned in the beginning, these weren't changes that I implemented because of my social media problem. I didn't even know that I had a problem. These are just steps that I took in my journey of seeking God, but I know that it is because of these things that I have been able to experience His transformative power.

1. The first thing I do in the morning: read the Bible

Okay, like the first thing apart from brushing my teeth and making breakfast. But the the point is by doing this, it has really helped me not check my phone the first thing I wake up.

This is something that I haven't been able to do in a long long time... until 2020.

On 31st Dec 2019, I decided that I wanted to read the Bible in One Year. I was at a place where I felt like I had grown a lot in my faith but I still lacked a familiarity with the Bible. And if you've read this blog post, you'd know that I was just at this point where I wanted to know God better, where I wanted to seek Him, where I wanted to find out what He is saying to me, and not just what other people tell me that God says. I knew that God is a personal God and that He speaks through Scripture.

So I set out to read the Bible in One Year! :D This is actually the first New Year's resolution that I have ever been able to keep in my life I think. As of today, I have read 361/365 of the Bible🤯🤯🤯

I will definitely admit that it wasn't easy in the beginning. There were times where I found it long and boring. But I think a few weeks into it, I already started to notice the changes that it was making in my life.

But yeah, I think deciding to read the Bible first thing in the morning really really helped me wake up at a consistent time. Last year, I would just wake up whenever I needed to travel to campus, which fluctuates between 7am to 10am. I noticed that because of this inconsistency, I was constantly tired.

After I decided that I want to read the Bible every morning, I started waking up consistently at 7:30am and then this time just moved earlier and earlier because I wanted to see the sunrise.🤣 I don't think I have to tell you this but you really get SO much more done in the day when you wake up early.

Right now, I normally wake up sometime between 6:15-6:40, so I have set the screen time on my phone to not bombard me with notifications until 7am. I absolutely love just sitting in the quiet of the morning, enjoying my cup of breakfast tea, reading my Bible, and looking out the window at God's amaaaaaaazing creation. Every morning, when I draw near to God I know that He draws near to me too, and I am reminded that I can enjoy being in His presence every single moment of my life.

Reading the Bible has just opened my heart to listen to what God has to say to me. To be reminded that I actually have a purpose in life. To be reminded that each day REALLY is a fresh start. Even though we hear this often, I think I never fully believed it, because I would always just be weighed down by this guilt of not having done 'as well as I could have' in the past. And I would be weighed down by not having met this standard that I think I could achieve, but then I realized that this standard that I have in my head is just so warped by my tendency to compare myself with others. So since realizing that, this year I've been able to so fully appreciate how uniquely God has created me, to know that no matter how badly I feel that I have messed up, there is always hope for me. God has always got my back, and knowing that has just given me so much strength this year.

So now instead of letting social media dictate my life, I let God tell me how to live. This is the God who, unlike social media, actually loves me and has good plans for me and wants the best for me.

I know that this strength does not come from myself because I am definitely someone who is prone to overthinking, who is prone to self-doubt, and who is prone to worrying excessively about the future and about things that I don't have the power to control anyway. And it's not like all of these tendencies suddenly vanished into thin air, but whenever I find myself going down the path of fear, there is something deep inside me that reminds me I don't have to have to be afraid. Because I know this perfect love that casts out fear.

2. The last thing I do at night: stretch

And then the second thing that I started doing this year was stretching before I went to bed.

I actually started this for Lent. If you're unfamiliar with Lent, it is essentially 40-day period in the Christian calendar just before Easter. And it is customary to fast during that time. However, instead of fasting, many modern-day Christians choose to give up something, like a luxury for those 40 days. (I'm explaining this because I don't think this really was a tradition that people observed where I grew up. I've never given up anything for Lent until this year.)

So yeah, this year, some friends at my church were talking about Lent and what they were giving up and everything. So I was like, hmmmm maybe I should also choose something to give up for Lent as well... But actually maybe I shouldn't bother, because I probably won't have the perseverance to keep it up for 40 days anyway.

Eventually, I thought about how I read somewhere that it's really bad to be looking at light-up screens within the hour before bed. So I decided, okay, for 40 days, I'm not going to look at my phone for the 30 minutes prior to sleeping. It sounds simple enough, but for someone who had the habit of mindless scrolling before bed, it's was actually quite an ambitious thing to do.

My church friends also mentioned how it's good to pick up something new in the place of the thing you have given up. So for example, it's much easier to give up social media if you pick up the habit of reading instead, as opposed to just trying to give up social media.

After thinking about what would be a good habit to pick up before I go to sleep, I decided that stretching was a good idea :D I've always wanted to be more flexible.

And that is exactly what I did.

If you've noticed in the picture above, my screen time is set from 7am-9pm. So all my apps are locked from 9pm and I am forced to start stretching and getting ready for bed.

Well, most of my apps. I've left Spotify unlocked so that I could put on soothing worship music as I stretched:)

Even though I said that I was only going to do it for 40-days, I think by like the 1st week I was already thinking, why haven't I been doing this my whole life? My sleep quality just improved so rapidly. I'm not even kidding. And by the end of the 40-days, I just kept on going with this habit without even thinking about it because it really just gave me such an amazing sense of peace. And of course, it made sure that I slept on time.

9 months later, I actually feel energized every morning when I wake up and now I'm almost able to do the splits 🥳🥳🥳

Yayyy, so thanks for sticking through till the end of this blog post hehe I know that it was really long.

As a concluding remark I just wanted to say: when I decided to change these two things in my life, I definitely felt like I was giving up my liberty to do these things that I have the right to do. But now more than ever, I have realized that what I was doing was choosing to let go of things that weren't even good for me in the first place:)

The purpose of this post is not for me to tell you what you should or shouldn't do in your life. But as someone who has struggled to make changes in her own life and has now found what really works, I just wanted to share my experience:) I wanted you to know that it is possible to make those changes in your life that you have tried and failed to make. But perhaps more importantly I want to encourage to seriously think about your habits and desires and what REALLY brings you joy.