I took a break from social media for one month, and I didn’t die!

Turns out, the exact opposite happened. I thrived.

But sadly, I’m back again. The funny thing is, I didn’t really miss anything.

My life didn’t change from being “off” for a month. I did my same routine, went on an amazing trip, and kept steering the TRU.X ship forward.

I would say I definitely had more Blog time (if you haven’t subscribed, your blowing it) as a result of not endlessly scrolling and getting sucked into whatever up-to-the-minute daily drama the internet produces for clicks.

My social media breaks are a way for me to not get overly addicted. I admit that I’m not strong enough to resist getting sucked in so I set perimeters on how much I use it.

“Then why even go back?”

First of all, Grandpa Ryan bases his life off my posts and stories and he always gets super depressed in the month of January every year and also every Sunday when I take a social media break.

I don’t want his life to fall apart so I mainly just do it for him.

I’m only half joking.

The real reason is that I’ve made some awesome friends online which I’ve met in real life and I’ve learned a ton of information in the dirt game from the heavy equipment community.

It is pretty awesome to ask a question on social media and get 100 different answers. To hear and see what works and why it did. It takes a lot of guesswork out of the equation and vastly reduces the trial and error phases.

For instance, we were looking into a horizontal grinder to purchase. I put it out on my social media stories and got at least 10 leads of where to start, what to look for and also learned a ton about what they are capable of.

One guy in particular, Brandon Corbitt, was kind enough to take the time and show me his rig on the Big Island.

His guy spent 2 hours going through everything, actually running the machine, and telling me all the pros and cons.

I made up my mind 100% in the direction we ended up going because of it. In fact, we purchased the same one.

Stuff like that probably would have never happened without the Gram (Instagram). It is definitely possible but would not be as easy.

The other aspect of why it’s important for me to have some kind of social media is to share my faith.

With the click of a button, I can reach hundreds of people, maybe thousands, and share a scripture from the Bible. Or my struggles as a Christian or the straight up Gospel of Jesus.

It is not my job to make someone believe in my faith, but it is my job to share about it.

Someone right now is hurting, depressed, hopeless. They think that there is no way out. Life might be crushing them so badly that they want to end it all.

If I don’t share about the redemption, hope and love of Jesus, that can completely change your life, then I’m not doing my job. That one person might not have known there was another way.

I’ve received 1000’s of messages in response to sharing my faith. Mostly from Christians but also from people wondering what it’s all about. The conversations we had were well worth all the other crap that comes along with the internet.

So that being said, I am back. At least for 6 days out of the week. I can already see the smile on Grandpa’s face, well, I guess it’s kind of a smile…

#staytrue