Social Media and You
When did being You stop being good enough?
When did being You, mean you were less important than others?
When did You become boring, with a less exciting life than others?
And when did we all suddenly have to compete with the rich and famous?
Social media has brought about the idea that we need to sensationalise everything we do. Massive highs, and incredible lows, just to share what is happening in our day to day lives.
Almost every person in the world goes about their life, their predominantly uneventful life. The same decisions on what to wear in the morning, the same commute to work, the same job, with the same people and then home to the same house, same family and same friends.
This mundane existence only interrupted by the occasional holiday, the weekend off, spending time with the family or friends. Enjoying the fruits of your efforts.
When did this stop being enough?
There has always for most been a slight jealousy at those around us. The friend with the better looking boyfriend or girlfriend, the better job or the nicer car.
For so many years, this type of jealousy was pretty harmless, as long as they didn’t rub their lifestyles in your face.
Now with the effective globalization of social media, that small group of friends, the small window into the lives of others has pretty much consumed us.
Surrounded constantly by images of the sensational in other peoples lives. We are forced to see both the ridiculously extravagant lifestyles of the rich and famous and the horrendous conditions those less fortunate in third world countries endure.
What’s wrong with that? you might ask.
SENSATIONALISM. This belief that we have to live a life as exciting and as indulged as celebrities, we have to look like they do, dress like them and have as many holidays as they do.
We live in a fault based society, as children we are thought to seek out our imperfections and where we fail in order to improve.
We look at the lives we see on social media, and forget who we are, what we have achieved, looking on as we see what we perceive as normality and what we imagine our lives should be.
People all over the world, running themselves into debt, spending money they don’t have to have the latest phone, the nicest shoes and the holidays they see in magazines and on twitter.
The Gap of Self Acceptance, your sense of social entitlement and position is ever growing. That difference in who you think you are and who you think the world expects you to be. Ever widening. Causing stress, depression and anxiety.
People complaining they cannot afford the school books for their kids, or to pay the bills, yet still managing to have 2 cars and 4 family holidays a year. Justifying the actions because they needed a break or they work hard and deserve to have nice things.
The lesson in all of this?
Remember, behind every social media account, even the ones of the Kardashians, and the people who profess to be happy, there are arguments, there are illnesses and stresses. They may be different in ways than some of the stresses you as a normal 9 to 5 human being face, but they suffer in the same way.
I was told once by an old photographer, something that has stuck with me for a very long time.
Photographs catch the highs and the lows. The holidays and the parties, they even capture the worst moments in humanity. What’s important and is the measure of a good life, is what happens between the photographs. That’s were family is made.
How you choose to walk in the skin you wear is your choice. Why not embrace it.