Refreshed, Renewed, Refined

Would you be willing to give up something temporal to create peace in your home? If you're not married, this might be a difficult concept to understand. However, when faced with the decision to let something go, something I find important, to work on communication and peace with my spouse, it really was an easy choice!

Lessons I learned:

1) The sad reality of twitter is that most of it is really really meaningless. 95% of those I follow and follow me are not really friendships... it's more like stalking. Why do I follow people in Texas? Or New York City? Especially when they tweet nothing that has anything to do with the subjects I'm passionate about? Why do I follow people who tweet about issues that I disagree with so much, I can't even carry on healthy debate? It really makes no sense...

2) I really don't need to know what's going on in everyone's lives. Before my sabbatical, I checked the public timeline nearly every 15 minutes if possible... I didn't want to miss that "cool tweet" or "funny post" or whatever.... but guess what? This week, other than the deputy shooting, I really don't feel like I've missed out on anything. And for those relationships that really do mean something on twitter? I'm sure I'll get caught up really quickly.

3) The feelings of those closest to me far outweigh the feelings of those that have a cursory relationship to me. I think (though this might be delusional) that some tweeps were offended(?) that I just dropped off the map without so much as a "see ya later". I suppose it was kind of rude. However, choosing to show sacrifice and honor to the one I'm suppose to make completely happy is a bit more important. For that, this has been a good week.

4) "If you give an inch they will take a mile". This isn't always true. I have had some council this week to "take a stand" "don't give in" "if you give this one little thing up...." Sometimes we need to trust the heart and of the one that's important to us. My hope was, by sacrificially giving something up, good constructive and open communication would occur. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. Long and good talks ensued over this week. With deficiencies on both sides being identified.

With all of this learned, I would say that twitter sabbatical was a raging success. More trust has been formed, priorities have been straightened, and relationships have been strengthened. Not to say everything is perfect. Of course it's not, but it's better. And that was the goal.

So I am happy to be rejoining the twitter community with some important boundries:

1) When I am with my family, I won't be on twitter at all. Therefore, during the evenings and the majority of the weekend, I'm not going to be around.

2) If you don't live in Wichita or around, and you don't tweet about the things I'm passionate about (music, comics, bakugan, spirituality, etc.) I'm not going to follow you, nothing personal... Also if I am currently following you and you don't meet this criteria, I will be unfollowing you, again, nothing personal.

3) I will be staying away from long drawn out conversations. Of course I will reply... but answering that reply with this one... than another.. than another... come on? Is twitter really the best modem for this kind of communication? nah... save it for the next tweetup.

4) I will be limiting my tweets. I first saw twitter as a place to post what was really interesting or important. Somehow it became the place to tweet about the mundane. So I'll tweet about the things I'm passionate about... but not about "I'm driving to Newton." Does anyone even care if I'm going to Newton?? uh doubtful.

When it's all said and done, it's good to be back... and many of you, I truly did miss!

~Matt