There’s no doubt that our generation is obsessed with social media, and as bloggers, there’s even more pressure for us to grow our presence across the various platforms. We’re constantly trying to up our social media game, figuring out what to post, how to post, when to post – it’s exhausting. All the stress reached a boiling point last Friday when I read this ridiculous post by Instagram and literally imploded. Since then I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection, and I realized 5 things:
- Numbers don’t define your success. It’s hard not to obsess over numbers, but just like people can cheat on tests to get a perfect 100, they can cheat or use questionable tactics to fake their follower count. If we’ve tried our best and done things the right way, at least we can sleep well at night knowing we’re not living a lie.
- There will be shitty people everywhere, but we can choose how to respond to them. We have no control over these people and their despicable actions – whether they’re stealing our work or just being plain rude – but we can choose to not let them get to us. The last thing we need is for them drag us further into their shit show and ruin our day.
- Stay positive, there’s a silver lining in every situation. Despite the bleak circumstances and how discouraged I felt, I forced myself to think positively. No shitty people or ridiculous algorithm can take away the wonderful friends I’ve made and the support they’ve always shown me. Seriously, every time I see a real comment from a real person (none of that “amazing 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻” bot bullshit), it brightens my day.
- Be grateful, and stop comparing yourself to others. For every person out there that’s “better” than us in one way or another, there will be another person who is in a less fortunate situation. If we choose to only look at what we don’t have, we’ll never be satisfied with what abundance we already have. If you really want to compare, compare yourself to the you from yesterday.
- In the end, none of this will really matter. Not to sound morbid, but when we’re on our deathbeds, I don’t think anyone is going to regret not spending more time blogging or on social media. There are much more important things in life, and we should prioritize accordingly.
Before realizing these things, I wanted to shut down my social media accounts and my blog, because it was just too stressful. But once I started to see the bigger picture and figure out what my priorities were, all that self-induced stress started to disappear. I don’t have to let social media consume me, nor should I let it determine my happiness.
Maybe this social media example isn’t applicable to you, but what about grades? Or boys? Or just life in general ? The principles are the same, and if you’re going through any kind of rut right now, I hope that these 5 reminders will change your perspective for the better like they did for me. Have a beautiful week everyone and I promise I’ll post again soon this week about less intense topics!
PS. How do you guys like the new theme? It only took me forever to finish it, but let me know if you come across any kinks and bugs. FYI it doesn’t work in IE9 or lower, because I’m tired of providing backwards compatibility for shitty browsers that just refuse to die.
Seriously guys, stop using IE.