The Facebook Hills of Beans

Most people have songs randomly stuck in my head. While that happens often for me, I also get random movie quotes stuck in there as well. Today, while cleaning my apartment, the same quote from Casablanca kept popping up:

"I'm not at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

So, I stuck the movie in the player and spent the afternoon humming As Time Goes By.

This past week I deactivated my facebook for the first time since I created it back in high school. I removed it from my phone, from my Kindle, and from anywhere else that might tempt me to reactivate. It felt good not to be so connected. Even reactivating it, I'm keeping it off my phone. 

Now, there were certainly some drawbacks. I realized after I deactivated that it was my only connection to some friends living abroad that I still need to message back. Breaks at work were spent staring idly at my phone instead of scrolling through facebook updates. 

What I enjoyed, however, was that I couldn't share my random thoughts with everyone as freely. As you see, I didn't update my blog at all last week either. It all comes back to this quote: "[my] problems... don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." We spend so much time checking who's in what relationship, what pictures were posted, what everyone thought of this week's Bachelorette... sometimes I think we forget that there are more important things, or become too absorbed in distracting ourselves. 

I'll still argue that facebook can be a great communication tool. I, myself, have used it to broadcast poor road conditions or solicit prayers for causes. Let's not forget, it's a great way to keep in touch with lost friends. 

So, I reactivated, with the intention of perhaps not taking over the news feed with my own little hill of beans. Facebook, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.