It was the summer of 2013 and I woke up before the sun planning to take a quick bike ride before everyone else was up. I did what I always did first thing in the morning; I logged onto Facebook to scroll. As I was scrolling I saw a post made by someone I had known in high school in which they were shaming a cashier they had interacted with while out shopping. Reading it rubbed me entirely the wrong way. I had built a career in retail so that may have been the catalyst but regardless, I jumped on my bike super agitated by what I had read. Ironically, my annoyance probably fueled my ride that morning and most of it was a blur but I distinctly remember as I cut through the back of my kids elementary school playground that the rising sun was hitting the trees and dewy grass so magnificently that it took my breath away. It actually sparkled. The world around me was strikingly beautiful in that moment and yet internally I was angry. Bothered. Unhappy. Dark. In that raw moment I had a stark revelation. If I had not seen that post that morning I would have been at peace inside. Unbothered. In the moment. I would have been physically present in all of nature's beauty and internally present too. And that is when I knew it was time to go. I realized that if I didn't have Facebook I would have no clue what was going on in over 90% of the people I was "friends" with. I no longer interacted with most of them "in real life" so why was I interacting with them at all? The fun and excitement of rediscovering people that were once a part of my life had clouded the truth that sometimes doors close and chapters turn for a reason. The majority of people are meant to come and go in our lives. It's called growth. I decided that day that Facebook wasn't the place for me to engage anymore. It took me a day or two to fully take action but I quietly deleted my account and moved on. I had decided my peace was more important than my "social network".
Cringe is data. That little something you feel deep inside? It's information saying "Scroll on! This is not for you!" Yet somewhere along the line we were conditioned to believe that everything that comes across our path must be pleasing to us. If it isn't, our brains immediately scan to justify why it isn't. We try to justify the cringe we feel. More often than not, that results in a finger being pointed out, not in. What happened to recognizing preferences and just saying "No thank you, that's not for me"? Instead, we weigh in on things that realistically we may have little to no interest in or would have even considered. We formulate opinions and waste energy on things that are of no relevance to our daily lives and ironically, simultaneously allow them to affect our daily lives.
Social media isn't going to change to meet us where we are at. Wait a second, that's not true. Social media adapts instantly to where you are at. Engage or linger a second too long on a post that makes you feel a certain kind of way and next thing you know your whole feed is nothing but that topic. In under five minutes the entire world is falling apart because the evidence is right there in front of you showing you that it is. Feel bad about yourself? The second you engage too long on a fitness or self improvement post everyone is getting their crap together and you have fallen behind. That house hunting/ home renovation post you just liked? Now everyone your age is affording homes or renovating their outdated ones and you are never going to find yours, let alone have your dream home. And maybe that is why we scroll endlessly. Everything we view is validating something deep inside, true or not, but if we keep scrolling we may just come across something that makes us feel a little bit better....
I scrolled too long the other day and when I finally put the phone down and stood up I felt gross. I went upstairs and told my husband that if I didn't know any better I would leave this house each day suited up and ready for a battle. I would walk out of the house expecting confrontation. I see people filming other people everywhere to shame them for their actions, people fighting with each other everywhere over differences in opinion and everyone is an "expert" and doing it right while you are still just trying to figure it out. Hustle culture has put on a mask called entrepreneurialism and suddenly everyone owns their own business, is their own boss and is selling themselves in one way or another for survival and visibility. It's exhausting. They keep changing the algorithms because WE are actually algorithms! Human nature can be so easily predicted. We thrive on evidence and what we see is clocked by our brains as evidence. We live by what we see, and claim it as truth. We don't actually live by what we know. The body knows way before the mind what is true, what is false and it is constantly sending us physical signals. The mind overrides the signals or worse yet, adapts itself to someone else's truth and accepts it as its own. Acknowledging this goes against every form of conditioning we have experienced since we were children and so we disregard, override the body and ultimately do not trust ourselves. We ignore instinct while all the signs are right there inside of us.
Somewhere along the way we learned safety came from belonging, from following the "pack". Polite society, religions and the cultures we are raised in contain unwritten rules and nuances that are nothing short of a one size fits all mentality. Do it this way and you will belong. What happens when you don't "fit in" or if someone else is breaking those rules? Discomfort arises and discomfort must be explained away. That primarily happens in two different ways. Point externally and justify the discomfort because we think someone else is wrong/bad. Turn it inward and you shame yourself for being the one who is wrong/bad. We mislabel ideals as rules and as a result we override instinct. When the body flags something as off, the mind jumps in to course correct. The whole system is upside down. Judgment is labeled discernment when actual clean discernment that should cause us to pause, observe and be curious is disregarded entirely. Discernment is not the opposite of compassion. Two things can be true at the same time. You can say "no thank you" or "I want nothing to do with that" without judgment. You can still have love and maintain distance or opt out. Unfortunately, our black and white world does not acknowledge "gray" or live by the saying "live and let live".
Where do we go from here? I'm glad you asked! The good news is that nothing is hopeless and the world is not ending. But the only thing you can control is YOU and YOU have full agency to decide your level of engagement in things in this world. The bad news is, avoiding things because they are "bad" and make you uncomfortable never solves anything and something else will inevitably pop up. You end up reliving the whole thing all over again just usually in a different context so it's not so obvious. Agency, (dare I say) FREEDOM comes when you know yourself so well that you choose from choice, not compulsion. There's a big difference. Compulsion drives behavior from subconscious beliefs, especially when those beliefs haven't been consciously examined. Like automatic behaviors, reactions. It may feel like you're choosing but you're actually being moved. How do we know the difference? That sense of urgency? Compulsion. The need to justify? Compulsion. Quick movement/decision making? Compulsion. I'm not saying ALL urgency or quick movement is bad. What I am saying is that we don't actually act on what we say we believe (a lot of people hate this part). We act based on what we really believe underneath it all. That doesn't make anyone or anything bad or wrong. It's just your system behaving on how it once learned to survive.
Unfortunately, when we stop acting on compulsion it feels like our whole world is destabilizing. This is why people have a hard time questioning systems that hold authority over us (hello religion and government!) But what feels so bad is actually the first real thing that is happening! Autonomy! Agency! The sands everything was built on stop shifting and things aren't being held together by artificial ideals anymore. The whole point isn't to prove things wrong or even bad. Systems are put in place to keep control, organization, to rule out unwanted possibilities. Agency, sovereignty over your life is simply a journey that brings YOU back to YOU. Who you were before that very first time you adapted a behavior because your system needed to survive. You can still function in this world and have agency over your life. You don't need to disappear, become reclusive or go "off grid". It is just a different way of being. One that offers more peace, more joy and actual freedom. Revisiting how we interact with social media is a great place to start. That doesn't mean quit it or avoid it. Ask yourself what you want from it. What does it offer you in return for the time you invest in it? I think many of us would find it isn't something we actually ever needed or wanted in the first place. But at least we get to decide.
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