Currently everything has to do with social media. It can be the lighting that hit you just right in the car prompting a selfie, marketing your business, Lebron James’ “TACO TUESDAY”, or even catching a unjustified murder between a black man and a white cop. Social media tells us how to feel, how to live, how to react, how to dress, or how to market ourselves. Let's face it... it consumes our lives. But what would we be without it? It makes everything instantaneous. Technology has helped evolve our world. But not all of it is positive.
If we are being honest with ourselves, what is the first thing we do when we wake up? Check Instagram, emails, messages, Facebook, Twitter, or the news? Ohhhh boy and don’t let us see that while our homegirl was out last night she caught her boyfriend with another woman or our best friend got dumped or even another black woman or man is portrayed wrongly in the media or worse has died. These can mess up our whole morning or even day. Qween, you just found out all this information before your first cup of coffee! There is a fine line between being informed and being overloaded with information.
Let's look at another part of the day. You just got home from work and need a mindless activity to do so that you can unwind from the day. Boom… here comes the social media scroll! As you scroll through Instagram seeing people work out, on vacation, “TBT”, cute dog videos, babies laughing, Beyonce being the Queen B that she is, you start to get overwhelmed. Your mind starts to take away all the hard work that you did that day and starts to envy other people's lives. “Man, I need a vacation” or “ I want to be making Beyonce money” or “ I’m not where I want to be in life.” This can either consume us or push us to work harder.
We need to remember that social media can be informational but also a fantasy. We tend to only show people what we want them to see, not what is really going on. We glamorize our life like everything is perfect.
We need to start being real with ourselves even if we choose not to do it online. We need to be more relatable. Maybe in the morning you don’t look at social media until after coffee or until 12 o’clock. Or maybe even give yourself a little break and not allow envy to get the best of you. You are doing the best you can for your life. Do not downplay that. Make sure that you preserve your own peace.
By: Mo
Mo is a California native who loves to travel, eat great food, and empower women to explore self-love and self- care. She loves to write and wants her blogs to feel like you are having a conversation with a long time friend. You can find her on Instagram @ladymo91 and @journeywithmo where you can see all her adventures with life, food, and travel.