Social Media

As YouTube and Instagram grow, so does people's aspirations and ambitions.

In my father's youth he saw nothing that wasn't right in front of him, he didn't see the lives of those constantly in the sun or in faraway places (yogi's I'm looking at you!). It sounds cliché but he lived in the moment as a child should- not constantly wondering about where he might be in the future.

My adolescence however, consisted of watching YouTube and posting to social media sites in which you see the handful of people who made social media there job. It seems the perfect career! You get paid to live your life and document it which leads you being able to do better stuff that more people are interested in.

For a while I would watch and be envious of these people and there lives, until one day I realised I'd wasted the whole day just refreshing social media... when I put it so plainly like this I am embarrassed!! But I finally saw that I was watching other people live their lives instead of living mine; I watched people do things instead of doing those things? That doesn't make sense now but I think it came from self doubt and fear and a dashing of laziness. I didn't believe that I'd ever be able to do these things but I have come to realise even if I can't, I can enjoy the things accessible to me now, to find satisfaction in my 'now'. I could be envious of these people but I am me and there is no escaping that so I need to embrace me. The people we see on social media only show us what we want to see, not the days where they don't get out of their pyjamas or when they aren't too keen on being themselves, so we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves.

What I think I'm trying to say is that social media- as great as it is for many things- has given my generation an impossible task... to be ok with what we have. We see better all of the time so we constantly want better. It has it's perks, I mean why should we settle for average? I don't want to either BUT can we ever get to a place where we are truly happy with our situation when there will always be someone behind a screen who seems to have it better?

What am I proposing?

I am going to take some of the time I use on social media and use it to live my life, maybe try something new and expand my knowledge or even just take some 'me' time and try to love my present.

Social media opened us up to the whole world, gives us unlimited knowledge and a chance to be heard. But it takes us away from the world, away from knowledge in books and our elders and away from ourselves.