FOMO

Am I even young enough to use the mnemonic FOMO as a title for this blog post?

Don't answer.

My social media was hacked two weeks ago. Talk about an energy sucking experience.

It's still sucking energy even this morning when I attempted to open my Linked In account....

Two weeks ago I had spent my Sunday doing Sunday things.

Out & about.

Relaxing.

Prepping for the week to come.

And late in the afternoon, before I was to begin making dinner, I thought I'd check my email.

I had a multitude. Over two dozen. Kinda weird for a Sunday. A lot weird. I should've seen the red flags.

Many were from Facebook or should I say "Facebook".

I open the first email that catches my eye. I don't open in order of receipt but my trigger happy finger tip goes to the 'shiny object', a notification from "Facebook" with a bright orange hazard sign. Illicit behaviour? What? When? When was the last time that I was even on Facebook?

I open another. An alert from the real Facebook warning that my account had been accessed from an unknown browser in New York City. Well Wtf, that certainly wasn't me. Omg does this have something to do with the other alert?

I opened my Facebook app. A multitude of Notifications light up the screen. Random unknown faces have accept "my" friend requests. Family members who I am currently "friends" with are requesting my friendship. Notifications of peculiar activity on my account. Mind blown, I close the app.

My What's app begins pinging with abundance.

Sh*t! I still have that thing on my phone!?

It was used for communication with our butlers at the resort during our Mexican vacation in April.

I haven't used it since.

I meant to delete it... but I never did.

I thought there's probably no harm.

But there's been harm.

I close the app and go back to my email.

I open the notification alert about the unknown browser use. Is this you? Yes it's me! Wait no, no it's not me! I mean yes it's my profile but No! No it wasn't me on that browser in NYC!

And with that reactive motion of my finger tip pressing 'yes' instead of 'no' I had without knowing it but, kinda knowing it at the same time, given access to the hacker to not only peek into my profile through a half opened window, but I'd given him the boots to kick the door of my profile page wide open.

A bomb of wtf explodes in my brain and I panic!

I feverishly glance at all the subject lines of the emails.

Which one seemed real? I read so many!

And again instinctively and stupidly, my finger tip goes to the 'shiny object'.

I re-open the 'notification' email with the bright orange hazard warning sign.

Prove who I am. Okay. That makes sense. I can do that.

I click the link.

Enter Email. Easy to do. Check.

Next Screen.

Birthdate. Okay, not a problem. Check.

Next Screen.

Photo ID. What?

Credit Card. What?

Is this for real?

My stomach drops to the floor.

I close the browser that I'd been taken to.

I stare at the email. An email that now upon third or is it fourth glance, is clearly phishing and has not been sent from Facebook at all. Jodi you idiot.

Yes, I know this. I know what is happening but I continue to panic and react anyway.

I open my facebook app... Halted.

No automatic opening but a request for my email to open the app.

Despite logic I continue anyway.

I type it my email.

No profile associated with that email. What?

I'm anxious, I must've missed typed.

I type it in again.

S-L-O-W-L-Y this time.

Denied.

No profile associated with this email.

POOF!

Gone.

My Actor & Writer Business Card Page still exists but not associated to my email. What?! Now what?

I still don't have the answer.

A wise younger man, my son, told me to log on to Instagram and change my password. So smart!

I do as advised.

And when I open my app I get an alert to complete a security check up.

Is this real or is this a scam? Is THIS a hack? How do I know?

With trepidation I proceed.

My birthday has already been changed. And not by me. But sure, I'd like to be 9 years younger.

If I was nine years younger than perhaps I wouldn't have been naive enough to hand someone the boots to obliterate my profile and to steal who knows what of my identity.

Not too long after this, my bestie opened her IG and went to a message that I had legit sent her. She was met with a pop up warning "Unusual behaviour or requests for money or personal info could be signs that someone else gained access to this account." So they know! The 'they' know that my account was hacked but yet I remain disarmed, rendered useless, unable to access my other Meta accounts.

So if you follow me on IG or my Writer/Actor page on Facebook, if we are "friends" on my personal facebook profile and any such request comes to you, please know that it is not me. Please report it.

So I lived with Facebook FOMO for about a week. And then a realization began to slowly trickle in...

If I am meant to know something important about someone's life, I will.

If someone is meant to know about some things in my world, they will.

And in this moment...

I sit here thinking of all the time that I did not waste these last two weeks pointlessly scrolling.

Time that I did not waste watching videos of beautiful strangers living their lives instead of living mine.

I sit here thinking of things that I did not miss.

In this moment in my life I feel it's important to do less of this time sucking stuff.

Time vampires, energy vampires... I've had enough of it.

So I want to do less.

But with everything I do, I want to do it with more.

With more integrity. More heart. More feeling. More love.

And with more pure intention.

A want to do it better.

So for now I'm going to end here and get back to the other rays of sunshine in my life.