…and totally forgot to tell you guys about it until now, so sorry.

That’s me on the left, Blake on the right!

It’s no secret that I love TOMS Shoes. I’ve owned so many pairs that I can’t count how many I’ve actually had. I have so many that I have summer only TOMS that sit in my TOMS Shoes reserve back in Ontario until sunshine hits. I have so many TOMS that I’ve had to leave pairs in Guatemala.

I keep this pair of TOMS unworn and on my shelf. They are signed as a going-away present by members of the Toronto MOB and the Free The Children/Me to We offices.

∞

When Blake came to Vancouver for a TOMS Shoes launch event at Holt Renfrew, one of my best friends Alyssa got word of his appearence and sent me a bbm with the details. A frantic bus ride a few hours later we ended up in his presence. He’s a chill dude, totally in the middle of tons of TOMS promotions, but was nice enough to take time to sign my flag.

I felt like I was at the launch party for the Abercrombie of grassroots movements. Beautiful Holt Renfrew staff members were wearing my primary choice of shoe as they served me hipster bottled cola out of a little red wagon as we hung out next to designer jeans. There was carmel kettle corn that came in little TOMS bags, a TOMS dj, a TOMS air hockey table and TOMS pillows.

I love TOMS for their simplicity, comfort, and that they give a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you buy. Because of their partnership with Holt Renfrew I know that more shoes go to more children in need but I left with feelings that the TOMS Shoes experience was becoming a little less personal and thoughtful. The personal touch of giving you a TOMS flag and a TOMS sticker with every purchased seemed to see a little less special and I felt that people who were buying TOMS didn’t even know the company values that made them special.

After all of the glitter and glam of TOMS being launched in Holt Renfrew stores that evening, I didn’t stop giving my TOMS back at home the love and attention they deserve. I’m still a TOMS Shoes fan and I’ll still support their mission of giving shoes to those in need. I hope the message of that reaches the masses that now wear their shoes.

Digger wasn’t getting enough attention when I existed on facebook

I realized my dependence on it one evening. I checked it constantly on my phone waiting for something new to come up on my feed. I refreshed it and dug deep into it when I was in my room. I searched to find something interesting on it, even though I already knew I had seen everything that there was to be seen. I’m now waiting to read a big newspaper article one day in the future about the severe health effects facebook will have had on our generation.

I was and still am addicted. The scary part is that it is socially acceptable to be addicted to facebook. Often, we don’t even notice our dependence on it and when that dependence reaches an unhealthy level. My dependence reached an unhealthy level. It was probably months, maybe even years ago, and it took me until now to do something about it.

I deleted facebook, with more reasons to it than just because I need to study for exams. I realized that I was spending so much of my time building a visual representation of myself that I could of been spending that time investing into the real me. The reason why I was constructing an online identity was to satisfy an other and the time I was investing into it had no significant benefit to my overall well-being.

facebook is there as a tool to connect with your friends. At what point do we lose site of what connecting with your friends really is? When is facebook too much? I found that I was contributing a lot of my time to my friends through facebook instead of face-to-face encounters that I find to have more lasting impressions and prove to have more meaningful interactions. My time could be spent sitting on their couch watching Glee with them, rather than sending them a message about it. I find the time spent in person to me more beneficial which is why I deleted facebook (the tool to connect with your friends) to be able connect with my friends better.

Another issue I find common among my peers on facebook is that we are constantly living through a camera lens and forgetting to take in what is around us in the process. A good example of this is when you are at a party with your friends. Let’s say you are at The Pit, a campus pub in the basement of the SUB with your friends from your forestry class. Instead of soaking in the experience of socializing at The Pit, it is very easy to get pulled into wanting to have the best photographs of the experience to often prove that you had an amazing time to others. In that, we lose the real experience that we are trying to have and then we begin fabricating the experience we wish we had. This often happens because again we are trying to satisfy an other but I realized that I want to satisfy myself. I don’t want to live through a camera lens, I would rather be looking around and taking in the purity of the moment. Through deleting facebook, I hope to come back to the idea of living in the moment.

Let’s return to the idea of dependence on facebook. I’ve currently deactivated my account and with that I’ve removed my facebook bookmark from my web browser. With that came the removal of facebook from my phone and I’ve also put a pause on my twitter account (that too took up a lot of my time for many of the same reasons). This is not to say that I won’t return to either forms of social media. Once I can find satisfaction from within myself and not from the approval of an other, I will then return to both forms of social media. Once I can conquer my facebook dependence I will soon appear again on your wall and in your feeds. I might take it away again after it returns, just to keep me in check with what is really important in my life. I have been dependent on facebook since 2007, I don’t want it to be my only memory of growing up.