Hi everyone, and welcome! Thanks for showing up and checking out my blog, you’re probably here because you think what I have to say is some combination of funny, intellectually stimulation, or you’re just here to see how much I embarrass myself either way I’m genuinely appreciative. I wanted to start this blog as a place to share some of my life experiences, general stories, and any odd thoughts I have here and there so I hope everyone buckles in and enjoys the ride.
As I’m sure the 10 people who initially read this are going to be people who know me quite well I’m not sure an introductory blurb is needed. But for anyone who is unlucky enough to stumble into this blog here’s a quick intro about myself.
As of this writing I’m 26 years old living in southern New Jersey. I grew up in central Illinois where I was very mediocre at a few sports but somehow found myself a part of two state championship teams. One in track and the other in football. Then I headed down to Springfield Missouri where by the most random circumstances ended up a member of the Missouri State cheer team. After completing a history education degree and hanging around Springfield for a few years after graduation I made the decision to move 1,400 miles away to the Philadelphia area where I will properly be able to cheer for the Eagles.
Today I wanted to share a conversation I had with one of my best friends while visiting Missouri. I told him that I had noticed something in myself recently that I had wanted to do something about. Something I think all of us can struggle with in the world we live in today, battling a short attention span. Everyday we have hundreds of distractions laying about all vying for our attention, Tik Tok is a great example of something that dominates our short our attention spans. I told him that I’ve noticed how short my attention span has been, that lately if I’m watching TV I’ll also find myself on my phone scrolling through social media flipping from one app to another and back again, and when on my flight from Philly to Springfield I had started reading a book I was very excited to start and had heard many good things about. (Including an absolutely glowing review from the friend who is in this story.) For those wondering, the book is “Empire of the Summer Moon” and is about the fall of the Commanche empire. As I started reading the book, albeit I had already had a double crown and sprite at 5:30 AM at the Philly airport…as one does…I realized I just wanted to skip to the middle and get to the “good stuff” rather than put the time in and lay the foundation that comes with reading the first few chapters. Again, this is something I’ve found myself struggling with over the past few weeks and even months. When I explained this my friend got a silly grin on his face and said “I’m actually about to do something drastic to help overcome that” he went on to explain that sometime this summer he plans on getting rid of his IPhone and going back to 2008 and using a flip phone that only has call and text capabilities.
Holy shit, I know talk about drastic measures. I mean that will get the job done in many ways. As we talked through it though there would be a few things that would be tough to overcome, taking pictures would be rough. We all remember camera quality on flip phones, or lack thereof. Not having easy access to Spotify/Podcasts would also be tough, also not having google maps could easily be problematic, and the risk of just falling behind in the times as far as news and trends go.
I don’t think going back to a flip phone is something that I can or will do but I certainly need to do something. Maybe put a parent lock on my social media apps so I can only use them for so long a day or only open it so many times in a day, and have one of my friends know the password and not myself that way I can’t cheat and bypass the parent app.
I’m curious to know what your guys thoughts are, is this something you’ve identified as a problem in your own life? Is it something you would try to change or just maybe you just think that’s how the world is now a days. The more I think about it the more concerned I get especially about the not being able to sit still and read as I used to love the adventure a book can take you on and now all I want to do is skip to the end.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you again. You’re a real one. It would mean the world to me if you were to share this link on any of you social media and or comment your thoughts. I’ll see you next time.
Respectfully,
Jacob Barra