Almost every morning, my alarm goes off, at which point I make an important yet negligible decision: I either reset my alarm for an expertly calculated wake up call sweet spot (rigorously developed by taking the square root of the number of hours I slept subtracted from 8 and multiplied by the number of things I have to do before leaving and in what time frame, divided by 60) or I turn off my alarm. What comes next is the horrifying part. The first thing I do every morning after turning off the alarm on my phone is punch in that pleasant little 4-digit code comprised of my high school ID number and fill myself in on the things I missed while I was sleeping. Any calls or texts take precedence, followed by deleting the 8 or so useless spam mails I’m too lazy to unsubscribe to, and then checking Facebook for 20 minutes to see what people I don’t really know have been doing with their time. I scan my brain for a witty good morning announcement and make my shamefully minor stamp on the rest of the world (specifically, their news feeds).

“Okay, Kaleigh, we get it. You’re a technology geek who, through some distorted form of self-loathing, hates the plugged-in nature of the beast. Spare us the sob sesh on your equally technological and socially networked blog.”

No worries, guys. This is no rant on the dilution of morals into the soluble sea of social media. This is, simply put, and introspective look at my lack of introspection and the associated side effects.

I used to believe in the power of chakras. In fact, I still do, but there was a lengthy period where I would meditate and pray every morning and evening and practice yoga poses and affirmations focusing on a specific chakra that might be out of whack.

Yeah, I did that. And I felt great.

I ate better, I exercised more, I thought better on my feet, felt more confident in my decisions, had clearer skin and less tummy troubles, slept like a baby, and stressed out far, far less.

Then, almost overnight, I forgot.

It’s like how, in the movie Hook, Peter Pan (Robin Williams) forgets Neverland. “How could he ever forget that?” I always thought to myself as I watched it over and over again throughout my childhood. But that’s the beauty of childhood because nothing makes more sense than happiness. Life, pre-responsibility, was filled with joy and excitement and an ever growing wonder about ourselves and the rest of the world. You could argue that that wonder still drives my Facebook addiction, although, at it’s root I think it’s merely a need to feel important and have that fifteen minutes of fame (proportionally translated into likes and friends).

Where I’m going with this is that the same ill-fate that befell Peter Pan has overtaken me in recent years. I forget to put the energy into what makes me feel good because I’ve forgotten the power of thinking happy thoughts.

Tomorrow, I will get up & mediate instead of touching my phone. I will check first on myself, take care of what needs to be done for the day, and, if there’s time, check my text messages. Mostly, I will try and get my priorities straight.