Completely Lost

“Once they get a hit of this, they hooked like that twitter sh*t.” – “Water Break,” J Cole

A hacker attack on August 6th shut down the fast-growing messaging service Twitter. Twitter said in its blog Thursday that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through. For Twitter users, the outage meant no tweeting about lunch plans, the weather or the fact that Twitter is down…The site still had lingering access problems midday, though both Twitter and Facebook seemed to be functioning at least intermittently, giving cubicle-bound social media addicts a collective sigh of relief. Allison Koski, a public-relations manager in Manhattan, said she felt "completely lost" without Twitter. "I had to Google search Twitter to find out what was going on, when normally my Twitter feed gives me all the breaking news I need," Koski said. – from the Associated Press

What do you feel completely lost without? Your Blackberry, iPod, laptop, cell phone? I’ve lived in three different places and two different cities over the course of two years. When searching for an apartment, one of the first amenities I look for is wireless Internet service. One way to find out what you can’t live without is by identifying the first thing you do when you’re in to a new place or when you’re assessing something (i.e. an apartment complex’s amenities). Checking to see if my laptop can pick up an unsecured wireless network is one of the first things I do when I move into a new place. A friend of mine updates his Facebook status EVERY TIME he does something new. It’s the first thing he does when he’s in a new place (i.e. in class, studying, on the way to somewhere, etc) so I can only imagine how he would respond if Facebook was shut down for an extended period of time.

Reading Allison Koski’s comments about Twitter made me wonder how many of us feel dependent upon material and external things to keep us from feeling “completely lost.” I recognize we use Twitter and our Blackberries to stay connected with others and help organize our lives but I believe the problem arises when we feel “completely lost” without these things. “These things” do not necessarily have to be related to technology or the Internet. According to dictionary.com, lost can be defined as forfeiting the possession of something, bringing to destruction, and using to no purpose. Considering the definition of what it means to be lost, maybe we are literally using our lives to no purpose or forfeiting the possession of our lives to the things that we feel dependent upon when we are deprived of them.

Have you ever considered that you could be giving your power to that which you rely on? When you allow yourself to rely on someone else for your happiness, you believe happiness and peace of mind is impossible for you to attain on your own, which is an unhealthy way to live your life. In my experience, I have learned that you will likely become disappointed and hurt if you depend on other people and external things because you will get let down, you will look around and no one will be there, you will realize that people may not regard you how you regard them, you will see people for who they really are and/or you will learn that everything is not what it seems. I encourage you to ask yourself “Who and what should I really be dependent upon?” because that is a question only you can answer. One of my favorite quotes states “Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself” and only you can conquer the belief that you need anything outside of yourself to complete you. I am not trying to warn you against depending on your best friend to take you to the airport or relying on CNN to inform you on what’s going on in the world nor am I criticizing users of Twitter, but recognize the fact we may be literally giving our lives away when we allow ourselves to become addicted and dependent upon anything that cannot and will not fulfill us within like only you can. So stop relying on Twitter to inform your loved ones on how you are doing for one day and call them personally instead.