I love the Internet. It is what I like to talk about and what I am curious about, but it stopped me from doing something very important: doing things.

When I was a kid, the Internet was already there, but just became accessible to the mainstream. We had a 56 kbps connection. Browsing the Web meant using the phone line. Nobody was able to join us during browsing time, which caused me a lot of trouble. Overall, browsing was slow and coupled with the hourly-caped plan my parents subscribed to, I used the Internet on very limited and short occasions.

Since then, the Internet has taken a huge part of my free time. For whatever reason, it has become the go-to thing against boredom and the best solution to feed my curiosity. I now go on the Internet for everything: to read very interesting articles, to listen to unusual music, watch incredible videos, etc. I cannot deny that it is deeply part of my everyday life.

However, it has become the filter of anything I am wondering about. Instead of trying by myself to figure things out - as I was doing when a kid - looking up online has become the easiest, quickest and most effortless way to get an answer. Younger, I remember experimenting with wooden planks to build a ramp to jump with my bike. Today, I’ve lost this thinking process. I would first look on the Internet for ‘how to build a bike ramp’. Then, if I find the plans I need, I’ll get distracted and finally never build my ramp. No effort whatsoever has been put into thinking and building.

Doing so, I ask the Internet to think for me and therefore I leave other people think for myself.

I’m tired of this. Tired of reading what others have done and thought before me. I want to figure things out by myself without delegating to others.

I want 2012 to be different.