You can't Google your way through life.

I can be super dependent on the Internet sometimes for two main reasons.

1.) I work from home and on the computer, so I frequently get distracted by gossip blogs on Yahoo and cat videos on YouTube. (Just kidding. I'm more of a dog person.) Sometimes Googling what I should eat for lunch seems like a better alternative to just opening the fridge and finding something on my own. 

2.) I have a really hard time thinking for myself sometimes. It's something I struggled with in the past, and I am someone who can honestly admit to Googling, "What should I do with my life?" on multiple occasions. I would always cling to an external source to tell me what to do and how to do it instead of just making my own decisions. I never trusted myself. I have since gotten a lot better at trusting myself, but I still fall into familiar old patterns of relying on the Internet to tell me what I should do. And if you tend to do the same thing and you're anything like me, you probably read articles and then fail to truly take action on anything you read in them. I'll read something, think, "Hmm...Interesting," and then just go right back to what I was doing. 

I think our reliance on the Internet is causing a huge disconnect. It disconnects us from genuine human interaction, it disconnects us from taking action on things, and it disconnects us from trusting ourselves and making our own decisions without a second opinion from eHow. And I know this insignificant little blog post isn't going to change that, but I guess I just wanted to address the issue and get it off my chest like I do with every other blog post I write. 

So I'm going to present myself (and you, if you're interested) with a challenge. No Googling how to do something mundane or personal for the rest of the summer. If I'm doing research, that's different. But I am going to do my very best not to Google things like "how to make a difficult decision" or "how to communicate effectively" or "how to not be scared of bees anymore." Because chances are, in the end, I will still have a hard time making a difficult decision, I will still communicate ineffectively (or not at all), and I will still be scared of bees. I realize now that no amount of Googling will truly change those things. But taking action and thinking for myself might.

Take the challenge with me?

<3 Madison