Tag: social media

Building Up, Not Down

· Leave a comment ·

It’s come to my alarming attention, that a lot of the time when seeing other people’s successes, I’m often wanting to see them fail rather than celebrate their success. I blame this largely down to being involved in sports from a very early age. Sport fosters and builds a competitive spirit that can lead to a toxic mindset of needing to see other’s lose, in order to allow us to win. Be it that last second free-throw or watching others struggle in general; the mindset is that you want your opponents to falter for your own gain.

But what happens when that mindset infiltrates normal life?

Well, we still need to be somewhat competitive in life to be ‘successful’. Job interviews require you ‘winning’ against others and that will require, in some part, your competition failing in comparison to yourself. It involves you highlighting your strengths, which becomes a highlighting of these weaknesses in others.

But there isn’t always a need for this competition, whereby you are directly competing with others.

Be it cars, houses or holidays, society has drilled into us the need to compete. Social media ‘likes’ effectively force competition and that’s a large reason as to why I no longer use Facebook. A quick aside, this decision was reaffirmed recently when dining out. A couple on the table next to me sat without conversation for 10 minutes, instead dedicating their focus solely to their phones. Their dinner was served and they instinctively asked the waitress to take a photo of them with their meal. Big smiles, etc. and the photo was taken. They ate their meal in silence and then left. But I suppose it got them the likes they craved on their relevant social media platforms. Behind that snapshot always lies a different picture.

So why do we seek to build down, rather than up? A lot of it is to do with us looking for validation by comparing ourselves to what others have. We do not seek to enjoy the now, instead looking constantly for what we can have next. We judge our own possessions and achievements by who else has them, or can have them.

Instead of judging our own worth by comparing to others, consider how our own worth makes us feel. There is no greater feeling in life to be contented with life. Seek contention in what we have, rather than what we think we need to make us happier.

Knowing more, to feel less…

· Leave a comment ·

The plague of likes, comments and followers has reached such an epidemic crisis point that Instagram is said to be considering the opportunity to see your algorithm-controlled social feed with that data hidden. But the beast has grown too large to curtail. We now know more, but feel less.

The social media generation get their value and worth from the numbers underneath their posts and pictures, rather than from what’s contained in the filter-filled images. Turning off the ability to have the apparent appreciation for these posts published to all, will only lead to greater feelings of a lack of worth. After all it’s better that we know the tree was seen falling and ignored, than not know if the tree was seen falling at all.

As a society we’re now programmed for a need to know more. Not more relevant information, but instead more irrelevant information. We are inundated with pictures of dinners, holidays and celebrations, without any of it being directly relevant to our lives. We seek this information to validate our own existence. Are others’ lives better or worse than ours? How can we promote our own lives to appear better than what we have already seen from our peers on these sites?

We have people eating out in restaurants with loved ones and families, documenting the occasion for the benefit of those not even there – potentially those who we only really pseudo-know. The whole process of going to dinner is to give an opportunity for a break from the norm; a break from the inundation of technology. But instead of enjoying this break, we seek to continue the technological enslavery and utilise this opportunity which was designed to allow for more face-to-face interaction – away from phones, tablets and television – to further the social media persona that we feel a need to develop.

We have a generation of teenagers who are more interested in engaging in digitalised interaction when out socialising in the real world; oblivious to the message they are sending out to those around them. Rather than devoting their attention and basic manners to those who have chosen to spend time with them, they are far more concerned with messaging those who have chosen to do otherwise. The same teenagers are avoiding interaction with their family elders when in their presence. Their focus and attention is on everything but those who won’t continue to live for as long as them, but they’ll be sure to continue to commemorate them online when they do pass. Funerals and deaths are after all, social media fodder.

The internet has given the world the opportunity to know so much more about the world. But it has also given us the opportunity to know more, but feel less worthy because of this developed knowledge. Instagram’s potential change could be a positive step, but the beast of validation via social media has already far outgrown any cage that it could be placed back into.

And Then It Happened…

· Leave a comment ·

The first blog post went up. A sense of weight came off the shoulders and a freedom ensued. And then it happened. The emails came through of some likes and a couple of followers and the tangible benefits began. The irony being that, at least to an extent, the first post was about finding contentment through things other than the measurable.

Let’s not be naive, the old adage of the tree falling in the forest and not making a sound is prominent here. Had I not wanted people to view the post, have the possibility to like it and then theoretically want to show that more may be desired by following, I’d have left the post on hard drive of the computer, rather than choosing to share it. Yes it feels good to have people engage with the content, but like more and more are finding on social sites, it’s not the views that matter, it’s that some may read the piece and find that it strikes a chord with them. Could it be that something in there has altered a mindset or influenced a way of thinking? Hopefully.

So what does it actually mean? Well, there is a chance that should similar figures not be achieved for this post then there could be a feeling of disappointment. But, what if that solitary post gave all that it needed to to somebody and they no longer search for that piece that could provide them with empathy or answers. Before you become concerned with a god complex, we’ve all had that light-bulb moment where something that somebody says, does or shares really hits home. There are two that stick with me the most:

“Only worry about the things you can control”

I can’t help but always go back to this mantra. We worry about everything, what people think of us, what could potentially go wrong with different, and what we can do should situations go horribly wrong. Often we’ll look to find problems where they don’t exist; allowing the positives to be overlooked. In a good relationship, we may look for the things that could cause it to go wrong. We’re often pressed for plans, milestones, checkpoints – as though anything in life, let alone relationships work by plans – rather than allowing us to enjoy the now.

“How you do one thing, is how you do every thing”

This is a much more recent idea that was shared with me and hit home. It came from fitness influence Nick Bare and of course has its ideas within the gym – skipping workouts, reps or sets will obviously have an impact on the transformations that we undergo – but outside of the gym it too rings true. How we go about and treat one thing, is our attitude to every thing. Allow ourselves to treated poorly by one collective of people? Well, then it’s no surprise when others believe they can behave in the same manner. Give a half-hearted attitude to the things in life that we don’t really want to do? Well then it won’t be too surprising if the things we love and care about, perhaps don’t quite get the same attention that they deserve.

So get about it. Do things in the right manner. Don’t worry about things beyond your control. And perhaps more importantly; enjoy the moment.