I turned 20 a couple weeks ago and I’ve been trying to learn new things and unlearn things I already know that have not served a right purpose in my life. I’ve mentioned this in the last post but I really am trying to dig deep within myself and find out patterns in my behaviour and where those patterns were rooted. I’m learning a lot, but the negatives are ones that I need to unlearn. It’s difficult and quite frankly, very, very exhausting to have to track my behaviours, but I know it’ll pay off in the end in one way or another.
One big thing that I’m trying to unlearn is basing my self-worth through numbers and social media. My self-esteem isn’t that fragile, I know who I am but there are times that I lose my identity and confidence when I indulge in being on the internet for too long. I can’t really quit social media either, especially not now during quarantine where we need the internet to stay connected and entertained. But being online really does my head in sometimes.
When I was in highschool, around freshman and sophomore year, Instagram was something that I genuinely cared so much about. If you scrolled all the way down to my Instagram feed, you could see that I cared a lot about how it looked, which pictures would go well together when presented, what filter would look good, contrast, saturation, and so on. I still care about those things but not nearly as much as I did when I was younger. In highschool I really wanted to impress people, I don’t know why but I guess it’s to get approval. During that time I cared so much about how I presented myself online. On Instagram I had to keep a clean feed, the pictures have to look nice, the filters should all match, I can’t have a picture of buildings next to pictures of flowers otherwise it will look too busy. On Twitter I had to be funny but I also had to be serious but not too serious otherwise I would lose followers, I felt like I couldn’t speak too politically because I was afraid that people I knew in real life would get annoyed. So much of what other people would think of me came into making decisions of what I should and shouldn’t be doing. I wanted to be perceived nicely; in nothing but a positive light.
I based a lot of my self-worth on numbers. If I didn’t get a certain amount of likes on a picture, it would make me feel as though I didn’t do a great job at taking the photograph and editing it. If I didn’t get a certain number of comments under a picture of myself that I posted, I would feel ugly. If my tweets didn’t get a certain number of retweets or likes, it would make me feel like nobody wanted to hear what I had to say, or that they were annoyed. I battled with that shit for so long. I needed outward validation so much that it took a toll on me and my mental health.
Fortunately, after I graduated highschool and moved to university, I was able to care less. Maybe it was because of the new environment and the new people that I was able to be around. There was no pressure to be perfect or to be funny all the time; everything felt natural. I still like for my Instagram to look cohesive and I still put effort in making it look nice, but for the sole reason that I want it to look nice for me. I want to be able to see it and appreciate how nicely the pictures were taken. On Twitter I was able to care less too. Gradually throughout highschool I became more and more vocal politically. I didn’t care about what other people thought anymore. The lives of the marginalized were more important than clicks anyway. I tweeted whatever it was that was on my mind and I had fun.
But like I mentioned, unlearning is difficult. My default way of thinking when I approach how I present myself online has always been that I need to impress others. For the longest time that’s the way that I thought of it. Although I’ve made progress in knowing that my worth isn’t and shouldn’t be based on numbers, there is still that lingering thought that stays with me and pressures me to be perfect. For who, exactly? I don’t know either. I’m more comfortable online now, but I try to keep certain things private because I know some things shouldn’t be shared online where things last forever.
Recently I was pulled back into that unhealthy way of thinking again. And honestly I’ve come to realize that social media is a performance. I know this has been said so many times but rarely is the internet ever genuine. A lot of the things you see are curated by the person who puts out the content, whether that’s a famous person or just someone regular. Most of the time you see good things but not what happens behind closed doors.
I hated being perceived, I still do. And I’m glad that quarantine is helping with that in the sense that other people don’t have to physically see me. But social media makes it so hard right now, because I’m still being perceived by people I know and strangers online, and I can’t do anything about it at all. And that thought pressures me into needing to be “perfect” again, and I don’t want to, because I’m not. I can’t stop the ideas that people have of me. I’m trying to make peace with that at the moment by trying to focus the need for validation from myself instead of others. I’m working on finding reassurance within myself. It’s tough work but I know it will benefit me.
There’s so much more I could say but I feel like I’ve already said a lot. I just want to say that it’s just Twitter. It’s just Instagram. Nothing is ever that serious on here. Let loose. Be yourself. You will attract more people (and quality ones, too) just by being authentic and genuine. I try not to care about what other people think anymore but I still do sometimes, and that’s okay. It’s human nature to worry, but don’t dwell on the worry too much or it will eat you up, trust me. I learned that a huge factor in being confident is just doing things anyway. Posting it anyway. Writing it anyway. Saying it anyway. Even if you feel like no one will hear you. As long as you like what you do, and you can affirm yourself, everything else will come naturally. No pressure, no force pushing you to do something that may harm you in one way or another. Just you being yourself, which is enough as it is.
AD FINEM FIDELIS 