You read that correctly! START scrolling.
Scroll through Instagram, FaceBook, LinkedIn, your text messages, even old photos on your camera roll.
Then STOP! Find someone you haven’t connected with in a while. Send them a “hello!” Share a memory you have of them, thank them for something, acknowledge one of their amazing characteristics, or just say “Hey! I’m thinking of you!” After all, these social media apps were initially intended to keep us connected, right?
Anyone else out there scrolling? I scroll like a woman possessed but only when I’m bored, procrastinating, hungry, tired, waiting to wake up, waiting to fall asleep, waiting for my children, as well as a few other moments throughout the day. This week in my Ambition to Action course we’re looking at our daily routines, noting our energizers (peaks and gains) as well as our ener-geisers (leaks and drains). My biggest energy leak, or ener-geiser, is scrolling social media.
I don’t feel good about scrolling, even if for five minutes. It feels like an energy leak and drain. I could spend those five minutes on energizers like reaching out to a friend, taking some deep breaths, stretching, or even walking outside. I took FaceBook off my phone to help stop the madness. Yet scrolling persists.
On a walk with one of my few local friends I mentioned how although I’m busy, have a full life, and have an abundance of love in my life with my partner and kids, I don’t have the friends, community, and thriving social connection I used to enjoy in Amman and NYC. “I love it here, but my WFH-A “Working From Home Alone” life in Santa Monica feels lonely at times,” I admitted.
“Why don’t you pop over?” she asked. “I’m at home a lot on my own, too.” This particular friend lives right around the corner and if I crawled to her place I could still bumble my way over in less than three minutes. But that would never cross my mind! Much easier to seek pseudo-connection through a scroll on IG.
That’s why one of my ambitions for this year is connection; I want to reconnect with friends and family I haven’t been in touch with in a long time and create new connections nearby. I have 1.5k friends on FaceBook and 994 connections on LinkedIn, who are all actual people! They’re real friends, family members, colleagues, clients, and acquaintances I’ve met at some point, but I don’t really know how they are and am mostly out of touch with all of them. I may be thinking about YOU or grateful for YOU in particular, and you likely wouldn’t have a clue.
I decided to take my scrolling ener-geiser habit and make it an energizer. Each day this week I’ve scrolled to find someone I haven’t said hello to in a long time. What’s cool is that apart from my project three people I haven’t spoken with or seen in ages have reached out TO ME to check in and say hello TO ME (without knowing about my lil’ project)! One friend who’d last sent me a WhatsApp message in 2019 that I STILL HADN’T REPLIED TO🤦♀️ apparently forgave my radio silence. Maybe these 3 kind souls had tuned into my intention of reconnecting?! There’s a wave of reconnection happening and I’m surfing it!
If you’re a person I haven’t been in touch with for a while, please reach out. I’d love to know how you really are beyond the posts. What are you celebrating? What are you struggling with? How are you, really?
If I reach out to you and thank you for a memory or say that I’m thinking of you and asking how you are, it’s not because I’ve lost my mind or want to sell a property in the Bahamas that I don’t actually own. It’s because I’m on a scroll.
One of the participants in my Ambition to Action course sets up 15 minute calls to reconnect with old friends. It takes a little investment to make it happen, she says, but it pays off in connection.
Are you a scroller, too? Then start scrolling, stop, and reconnect with someone from your past. I’d love to hear how it goes (comments are open!).
