One of the things that I hear people say to me a lot is that I am not on social media much – not nearly as much as I should be. Although I know that maintaining a presence on my various online networks is important and sometimes I do feel bad about my sporadic appearances, most times I feel no guilt at all.

Living In The Moment

See, while I know that engaging on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like are all a part of my job and I enjoy doing it, I am also aware that any time with my face glued to a phone screen is time that I am missing out on the  full experiences of the world around me. Sure, I’d love to shoot and share lots of photos of my family’s activities and special events all the time, and I would be thrilled to upload tons of footage from my travels and other things that I do all day. However my children sometimes get annoyed with Mommy for stopping everyone every 2 minutes to take 5 minutes to snap the perfect ‘pinterest-friendly’ photo, or  that I’m missing some awesome feat that they’re doing because I’m too enthralled with trying to tape it. And as for me, I certainly have had my moments of regret trying to ‘capture the moment’ for everyone else in the world only to miss out on the actual moment myself.

Living In The Moment

Not sure what I’m talking about? Just take a look at the clip below:

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See…….even Beyonce knows the moments when the phones and cameras should be put away!

 

How many of us are guilty of this? Yes, everyone wants to be a ‘social media rock star’ and yes, we all love to ‘capture moments to re-live again and again after they are over.’ But do we realize what we are really giving away when we allow the capturing of a moment on a device to take precedence over taking it in through our own eyes? Let’s see (no pun intended):

Living In The Moment

~We give away the beauty of being emotionally caught up in the moment – Our emotions are instead preoccupied with trying to make sure our phones are on the right mode, our cameras are on the proper settings, etc.

Living In The Moment

~We give away a moment for our lifetime memory bank – Photos from phones get erased or lost all the time, the same with flash drives. Computers and storage clouds crash and malfunction, online personal profiles get deleted. What lasts after all of that is memories in your mind.

Living In The Moment

~We give away moments we may never get back – My oldest daughter Rebel can tell you: one of my biggest annoyances with her is that whenever she is home from college, she cannot seem to stay out of her phone screen—not even to spend time with her 81 year-old grandfather. It’s more than a bother because the fact that we only get to be with her in person every few months or so does not seem as important to her as chatting with her friends via text, Facebook, and Twitter—something that she already does a lot of while away at school. When it comes to those possibly ‘once in a lifetime’ moments and especially moments with family, those are times when undivided attention should be given the most. You never know when or if you will get those moments again.

 Living In The Moment

~We give away full presence –Over the weekend my husband and I took a quick drive to the store. The moment we pulled off from the house, I took my phone from my purse and began engaging with folks on Twitter. A few moments later, my youngest daughter Lady T said, “Mommy Daddy look: a rainbow!” While my Husband was able to see it, by the time I tore myself aware from the phone screen we had drove in such a way that I missed it. It made me reflect on all of the other numerous times I failed to live in the moment because of a small piece of technology.

Living In The Moment

We all could take this valuable lesson from Queen Bey. We need to become more aware of life and take more value in the moments that we are in. When things are “right in our face” maybe instead of trying to share with social media, we should instead be a little selfish, put that phone and camera down, and keep the moments and memories just to ourselves.

Living In The Moment

 

Can you relate to the video above? Have you had moments in your life when engaging on social media or trying to take photos or videos interfered with you living fully in the moment? Share with me below or tell me about it at: melisasource@yahoo.com.

Living In The Moment