detaching
Lately, I have become acutely aware of all the things I am consuming. Specifically, all the things people on the internet are telling me to do. It’s become almost impossible to do anything without your social media algorithms picking up on it and giving you videos of people telling you how you did it completely right or wrong.
I feel like every time I pick up my phone I have someone screaming through it “You didn’t do go to xyz if you didn’t see xyz” or “STOP DOING xyz.” I just feel like everyone has been given too much of a platform to state their opinion. You literally cannot do anything without thousands, if not millions of people telling you you are doing it right or wrong. I saw a TikTok the other day going on and on about how you should stop it fruit because it’s so bad for you. Fruit.
It’s getting to the point where I am realizing the magnitude of having the ability to see what millions of people are doing, thinking, believing, etc. every single day. It’s not a topic that has gone unspoken about, but I think it’s one we have a tendency to quickly dismiss because it seems so obvious. When you take a minute to stop and think about how you are affected by these things it can be jarring. With social media, it’s so easy to feel like you are behind or like you aren’t doing something right. You see all these people with great lives, and even though you understand that’s not their real life, you can’t help but feel like they are beating you in some weird competition that they don’t even know you are a part of. It’s a constant bombardment of people either directly telling you how you are doing things wrong or indirectly telling you by showing you how their life is so much better than yours.
When I close my eyes and pretend like I don’t know what anyone else in the world is doing right now, I realize, my life is actually going completely in the right direction. I’m not as ‘behind’ or lacking as I thought I was. It’s a strange thing. Part of that I think is my competitive nature and my almost need to be ahead of the curve and do things that no one else is doing. But I also know for a fact that people who don’t have that also feel this way as well. That’s the other thing about social media, it makes things that are popular feel very ‘been there, done that.’ Things quickly fall by the wayside because everyone else is doing them. People fear being ‘basic’ so they chase the next thing coming (me included).
Recently, I have come to the decision to detach completely from everything that is not directly around me. I am essentially trying to put blinders on my own life. Focusing on what I am doing and nothing else. I want to slow down and enjoy every moment as it comes. I think we all need to slow down a little. I feel like we are also in a rush to do or see the next thing without actually stopping to appreciate the moment you are in. Especially, in America, I feel like it’s impossible for us to sit still. We have a tendency to push time along, for better or for worse, but I want to put an end to this in my own life. Embrace the boring, the exciting, the dreadful, the sad, all of it. I’ve realized each moment should play its course and that’s just what I am going to do.
