Where do I feel a sense of belonging, a place where someone needs me? after seeing this prompt the old me would have wondered," on Discord, obviously", but thankfully that isn't the case anymore. After all, Social media's whole purpose is to steal your attention isn't it? The infinite scroll, those fake laughs, it's all right there to distract you, to divert your mind to things of no potential value. It's like this monster which you need to escape but you can't! You can't run off to an isolated island and expect to live there forever. And that's not what we need either because soon after seeing your work, people will be inspired to move on to the island and that island will no more be an escape. It'll be a victim of the social dilemma called the Social Media. It's not humanly possible to ignore social media because it's everywhere! and that is precisely why we need a change.

I felt a sense of belonging on that discord server, we would play CoDM half the day and text during the other half. Now, in no way, I'm saying that it was a fake sense of community. What I felt that time was real as if those people really needed me but the constant feeling of distraught I had after missing a conversation was big time. And that was real as hell. I felt that no conversation could take place without me, or rather, I wanted to feel that no conversation was possible without me. And this was back in the Covid times. Being overwhelmed with all this, I decided to rest for a while. I had lost the feeling of what it's like to live a day without playing that video game. When I did go out, I had this urge to get into that community or rather, the environment.

The environment truly matters a lot in today's time. Where you are, whom all do you interact with, etc. The things you surround yourself with, whether you realize it or not, can have an immense impact on your emotional and physical well-being. If you surround yourself with smokers then you will become one too! For example, imagine a group of four farmers who agreed to not use pesticides for crop production for several reasons. One of them decided to go against this agreement and thought that if only he used then it wouldn't be much of a deal since the other three aren't using it. Now influenced by that farmer, one other farmer decides to do the same and so on. Soon all four of them have broken the "agreement". Now this phenomenon is common everywhere. One single person is enough to disrupt the environment. Planting trees and keeping plants is a great way to enhance your surroundings for the positive. The best blog on that topic in my opinion would be Freedom's: Power Up Your Productivity by Going Green - Freedom Matters. My Chemistry teacher used to say that in a class, only 4-5 will actually be mindful of themselves. My question to that used to be: if they form a group of themselves then how will the others progress? If they isolate themselves from the others then the others will just form groups of their own. And that is precisely why in every single community there's always every type of person. It's not entirely possible to have good surroundings every single time. But it is important to identify one. To know between the "Dos and Don'ts" and then act accordingly.

For me, a change in my environment has affected me immensely. And this change was in fact noticeable. I surrounded myself with mindful people. I travel and move places a lot, I have to and that is why I constantly meet new environments and surroundings. The last time I shifted, I decided that this time I'm going to be aware of the people I surround myself with and this and that. I made these so-called principles and only based on them I'd make friends. Or at least that's what I thought. When I first entered my new class, I was completely dumbfounded, my previous class had like-minded people but here it was just different-. I realized that I couldn't make any friends here. It took me a few days to contradict the previous statement. I figured out that I was dead wrong because not only does the environment influence you, you influence the environment as well. If you are studious then you will have somewhat-similar friends. I made friends, a lot of them and since then not once have I felt that I could just be that quiet introverted type of person whom you wouldn't even notice in class. And thank heavens that didn't happen. Like I said earlier, we humans are social creatures. If we think about isolating ourselves from others, it'll be hard because there are always people who need us, you are noticeable even if you don't realize it.

My change in behavior also made me more sociable. Earlier I only knew the people on that discord server but now I'm open to the world. It feels free, to just wave to someone and expect to get a wave back and actually get it. And this change also made me talk and be open about several topics on which earlier I found it hard to discuss about.

And Believe it or not, today, in fact, while writing this, I got added to a Group DM by an old friend. And that group DM had all those people from that discord server. Now I didn't feel that sense or pressure of being involved in every single conservation. I felt good after reconnecting with them. I don't regret what happened in the past, how I isolated myself and thought I was to be a gamer even when I was just being drawn in the internet's infinity loops, because that is what shaped me. Experiences can be negative and position and you must live through each one of them because each one provides a valuable lesson. This is what I learned from those two years of Isolation. Right now I have 273 ( and going ) unread messages but I don't care anymore because I feel good. Satisfied in a way.

To end this, I'd just like to thank the people I've met in my life. They have all impacted me in one way or the other. I've never had an old-friend-from-back-in-the-days because I moved out a lot but still, I met wonderful people and hope to explore and meet more!