Recently I went to a restaurant and the guys sitting next to me were secretly swapping watches, so that the one guy could impress a girl he had met at the bar with his friend’s Rolex. I’ve seen grown men borrow fancy, excessive cars in order to appear richer and more successful. I’ve witnessed people put on the most spotless show to the public eye, only to retreat into lonely, ashamed, substance-abusing beings in private. I see people often pretending to be something they are not.
In a world of Facebook, where we see a constant stream of our ”friends” lives – from their latest vacations, Ferrarris, bottle service in Vegas, to ultrasounds – we see the image people carefully craft. Because it’s online, the ability to pick and choose this image is easy.
Every status update, photo, boast and tweet – is chosen to present to the world the type of person we want everyone to think that we are. There is nothing wrong with this. However, it’s common for people to pose to be something that they really aren’t. I don’t know if social media is to blame for the lack of authenticity that is running rampant online. Regardless, I want to call it out. To the people busy posing out there, here’s my note to you:
Please. Be you. Nobody who really matters cares about the image of the perfect, rich, successful, party perusing, popular, celebrity acquainted person you are trying to craft. People who matter – they care about your kindness, your compassion, your consistency, your love, your attitude and your values. People who matter see through the other stuff and know it is just a mask to hide your insecurity. Fancy “things” do not add to you as a person. They are fine to enjoy, but just know that they don’t make you any better, more loveable, and definitely not any cooler. Are there people who gravitate to that stuff? Of course. But is that the audience and company you really care to keep? I’ll repeat a quote my sister once told me, “Only impressionable people are impressed.” It’s as if there is a big circle of impressionable people constantly seeking validation trying to impress everyone else.I have a lot of respect for people who have the courage to be raw, authentic, honest and… imperfect. Because as human beings – we naturally come with vulnerability, flaws, fears and complex emotions. That is what makes us beautiful. That is what enables us to connect and bond. When we try to mask our basic humanness and cover it up with superficial visages, we lie. We put forth a self that we think everyone wants us to be, when really, people just want you to be at ease with who you already are. Can we all stop posing now so we can really connect? In the words of the the one and only Dr. Seuss, it’s important to remember the 3 things to give up to be happy.
3 Things To Give Up To Be Happy
Thanks for the call back to authenticity and sanity. All the posturing and coloring of life through carefully selected and filtered images leads many us to what one psychologist calls “compare despair.” This phenomenon is exactly why I started the alternative Facebook page Unpostworthy which is a community of people united by the mundane, real, and really ordinary things in life. By sharing the ugly, gritty, and boring side of things we give each other permission to not be having “the most amazingly EPIC time of our lives” at every waking minute. It’s a place to confess that our Friday nights are often spent on the couch at home enviously scrolling though the glamourous, instagramified, hip happy facebook happenings of our friends. We realize that every day is not always capped with the “The best EVER!!!” and that not every moment is worth capturing with a hipster filter.
Thank you for this post!!!! I love it. You are so right. There are too many fake images out there and people are always trying to live up to something just because others are doing the same. It is so hard to find someone who you can open up to nowadays because there are just so many lies going on. I hope that someday everyone can feel comfortable just being authentic. Like Ghandi once said, “Be the change you want to see,” I will begin being authentic myself and hopefully it can inspire others to do the same. Let’s begin this revolution and bring us back to who we essentially are: humans.