#SelfieNation — And The Art of Giving a Fuck!
What if for 100 days, you could only post things that are derived from within your HEAD, instead of what comes from the outside-in?
( Image Dutifully borrowed from the MarkManson.net post linked in this article )
She wakes-up, feels beautiful, wants feedback on such a wonderful feeling.
He starts off his Monday, at the gym, with a rhythmic cardio warm-up, followed by almost — yup, THAT close — making the Lunk alarm go off at Planet Fitness.
In the cases above, a Selfie or a Check-In is posted all over social media. Starting with the mac daddy of voyeurism (‘hey, let’s see whose cool today... on…’), Facebook.
In each case, there’s a yearning, an unconscious search for hope that they’re “good enough.”
Truly they are… yet… still… something deeper — a call from the darker vestiges of the insecure and inadequate soul — beckons their search.
And… ya know what?
Go with it, coolio. Nothing wrong with that. ’Cause you’re human; by nature, we ALL have a tendency to strive to be admired, desired, validated.
Now, the $64,000 question (game show reference to anybody younger than 30) is:
If you lined up, say, 100 people you know who consistently post pics of themselves, their day, or their food… and if you asked them to refrain from it for 100 days, what percentage do you think could handle the emotional withdrawal?
Or, try this… ask your closest friends:
“What if YOU were tasked to only express YOU beyond the physical?”
To make this more personal, what if you shared, asked, and told “things” about you, from the inside-out?
What if for 100 days, you could only post things that are derived from within your HEAD, instead of what comes from the outside-in?
The ‘carrot on the stick’ would be $1,000 after 100 days of abstinence. (seriously, offer this challenge to your most social media-obsessed friends).
Could she/he handle it?
Like a crackhead in withdrawal, would the symptoms be too much for them to handle?
Social media is a kick-ass avenue for showcasing superiority, exhibitionism, exploitativeness, vanity and entitlement.
Zuckerberg popped his first code-cherry back in 1995.
What do you think it would be like if you took yourself back, pre-1995, knowing there would be no avenue for instant ego-validating likes, digital dialogue / comments, and reality-distorting bubbles?
In short, always remember: you’re damn “good enough” just the way you are; but, that doesn’t automatically make you EXCEPTIONAL by proxy. With a tongue twister of words, striving to feel good about yourself for no reason will actually do more harm than good.
(( For a critical view on that topic, just go get Mark Manson’s book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k. ))
There’s always a razor-thin, potentially dangerous, fine-line between self-worth and care… and… self-absorption, manipulation and the all-consuming drive to feel validated OUTSIDE yourself.
I submit that the first start to balance those out, truly, just might be to learn to lighten-up, take yourself less serious and relax into the comedy of it all.
’Cause, truly in the end (caution: sincere link), nothing about your looks, your manufactured life, or the artsy food you ate (and shared a pic of — puppy dogs excluded) really matters.
As Mike Kemski would say:
“Don’t get too worked up over things you’re not gonna care too much about on your way out. DEATH puts all the things that torment your actual LIFE into perspective.”
So, to wrap this up:
Relax into yourself, give a rat’s ass about people in and around you (express curiosity and desire in them; what THEIR needs, challenges, pursuits, goals are. Assist where possible)… and… when you’re feeling overly-insecure or important, remember one thing:
Sometimes the best medicine is to just say “F*ck That!’
And, unsurprisingly, there’s a free mediation for doing just that…