Offline musings

You may have noticed I've been away for a while. I'd been struggling with migraines for a few months, and they became especially bad when I spent time at the computer. I decided I needed to ruthlessly cut down on my screen time for a while and see if that would make a difference.

Last year, I began reflecting on how much of my life had shifted online since the pandemic started—online classes, online yoga, online training, online coaching, online meetups. I started to feel that all this time sitting down in front of my computer, mostly on my own, was negatively affecting my health, both mental and physical, and had been telling myself I needed to make a change. That's why, at the beginning of the year, I vowed to at least go out more and meet more people in person. My migraines took these reflections further, and led me to wonder whether I should make bigger lifestyle changes. I want to keep my content creation journey going. In fact, I'd like to expand it over time, which will entail spending quite a bit of time online. And I'll keep offering some online classes. However, I'm also working on making other parts of my life more offline again, starting with my leisure time. I actually just had this same discussion two days ago with a new friend of mine (whom I met in one of the offline meetups I've been attending!) who is in a similar situation. She spends a lot of time working at her computer alone, and she too feels it's not great for her health and is wondering whether to explore alternative avenues.

I recently came across the concept of "anti-goals". It's great to sit down and reflect on your goals and what your life vision looks like (similarly to what I did at the beginning of the year). But it's equally important to figure out what your anti-goals are, i.e., the things you definitely want to avoid while pursuing your objectives. For instance, I'd like a life that allows me to not have to work on a super fixed schedule, so I can better accommodate my health needs (some days I have bad flare-ups and need more rest, or I need to go to medical appointments, and so on). I'd also like some freedom of movement, so I can go away in the summer when it gets too hot in Italy, or occasionally work from the apartment we have near the lake. Working remotely would seem like the obvious solution. But if my anti-goal is spending all day in front of the computer alone, I need to find a way to make a living that won't be entirely online. Will I succeed? We'll see, it won't be easy nor immediate, but having that clarity is a starting point.

At any rate, these few weeks of reduced screen time were pretty great! I had a good time and definitely feel better now. Instead of watching videos on YT or reading articles online, I opted for crosswords and reading books. My bf and I also started playing Dungeons and Dragons as an alternative to movie nights. I got to do some traveling as well—I went to Porto for a few days in March and then spent some time at the thermal baths in Tabiano this month, which was another item on my January list. I'll post some pics here, but if you want to see more, you can check out the ones I posted on my IG account. I've also been doing art therapy sessions with another woman I met thanks to the meetups I've been attending. She's completing a masters in art therapy and was offering a set number of free sessions to fulfill some course requirements. It had been a long time since I last drew or painted anything, but after some initial hesitation, it was so freeing to just play with the shapes and colors on paper and see where that took me and my thoughts. And it's such a nice feeling to do something "with your hands", so to speak.

I'm curious to hear from you now. Have you found a good balance between the online and offline portions of your life? And what are your anti-goals?