It takes too much time and gives too little value.

One wife. Six daughters. The church. The gym. My friends. My house. Other dreams and opportunities…

All of these are reasons why I need to shut down facebook for a while.

This idea came from my friend, Ryan Clemence, a young man who a year ago got rid of his smart phone, and shut down all things social media. Over the course of that year his joy levels went up and he found that, after an initial period of withdrawal, he actually didn’t miss it!

As I head into 2014 there are some new things I want to do… things that take time. I need to take time from somewhere and the lowest hanging fruit is Facebook.

So here’s the plan…

I am going to de-activate my account for three months. This gives me time to go through my “withdrawal.” It also gives me time to establish some new habits.

After three months I will evaluate whether or not to resume my relationship with Facebook.

A few thoughts on this matter:

• I connect with a lot of people on Facebook and see it as an important platform for what I hope to do more of… writing.
• Right now, however, I see it as more important to develop my character and work on meaningful content than I do to update and check on my Facebook status.
• I know that I will not be able to connect with as many people as I do now, but I expect that if/when I do reconnect on Facebook I will have learned how to better manage it and have established disciplines that help me manage my priorities better.
• I will miss reading updates from folks like Josh Langley, Brutal Iron Gym, Aislinn Call, Maribeth Greene, etc. but I’m sure that I’ll be able to find out what’s going on in their lives if I need to!
• Some of you rely on Facebook as a primary means of communication with me. If that is you then you can e-mail me at thepaulpeterson@gmail.com.

As of Sunday night (1/5/14) I will de-activate my account. I will reconsider my relationship with Facebook on April 1.

In the meantime I will continue to blog and Tweet!

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Here’s a hat tip to you and to becoming a better and bigger man in 2014.