Why do you need to take control of your social media feed? You will understand this soon below. Read on.
The most important invention of our time I think should be the Internet. I cannot imagine our lives before this network of networks took over the planet. Now everyone is connected to every other person on the whole wide earth.
Is that good?
Yes. Of Course.
But is it bad too?
Yes. Of Course. And that is what I want to focus on specifically. I am not a Negative Nellie but today I read a story about a real-life event on Quora which made me think about the disastrous effect social media is having on our minds.
The story was about a young man who worked in an IT company and he went on and robbed a bank. Why? In his own words, he was fed up and frustrated to see every day a new story about someone in the newspaper, media earning Crores or Lakhs of Rupees. This had a negative impact on his mind as he was earning a fraction of that in his company. So, he managed to collect a huge sum of money by asking from his neighbors, friends, colleagues, and relatives in the name of some scheme, loan, etc. The total sum he collected was nearly Rs. 35 Lakh. He invested in the stock market and lost all of it within 8 weeks.
I can only imagine the pressure that he must have felt after losing such a large amount of money.
After that, he started borrowing money at huge interest rates nearly 30% p.a. from shady people to return the money he had borrowed initially from people. This was a vicious cycle that he got himself into. He got frustrated one day and decided to rob a bank.
Eventually, when he was captured by the police, he didn’t run. He simply gave up without any protest.
He just said this, “At last I can be at peace now”.
The police also didn’t beat him up and sympathized with him. But he did commit a crime and now has to pay for that by spending his lifetime behind bars.
I was shocked on reading this entire story and started thinking that what made an educated man, go down this dark path?
The comparison game
Humans have a tendency to always and I mean always compare our life with others. This habit of comparison is compounded by the media even more. We base our happiness on someone else’s life condition. If I am doing well than another human being then I will be happy. But If I am not doing as well as my friend of any other person then I will wallow in sorrow and keep despising him subconsciously. I will blame myself, my luck and be miserable.
This game of comparison never stops.
The role of social media
Social media takes this game to another level. We see now that it is possible to earn huge sums of money. And people, influencers on social media make this look too easy, struggle-free, and painless whereas the reality is far from this.
They know that it is difficult to earn such huge amounts of money in a short span of time. But they sell this dream to people who are desperate to earn money. In desperation, they take extreme steps like the young man in the story did.
So, what can be the solution for this?
Be satisfied and grateful for your present
We all have ambition, and it is our right to think of a better future for ourselves. But if we are currently unhappy and miserable in our current state then we cannot achieve fulfillment when we become rich.
If we can’t be thankful for our present we can never value our future.
Express gratitude to the almighty for your current condition daily. When you are in a satisfied and content state only then you will be able to move ahead on your path.
Resentment and jealousy will only lead you to a darker end.
Clean your social media feed
I am using this technique in my own life as well.
For example, I unfollowed topics that were distracting me from my goal on Twitter, and now just follow 1 or 2 topics max. 1 topic is related to my major goal. And the other one towards my minor goal. That’s it.
This makes my feed a lot cleaner and just focused on my work. I don’t see random tweets about someone’s income, or someone boasting about their profits etc. I only see what I want to see on social media.
Take control of your social media feed too.
You don’t need to know everything about every other person on this planet. We have a limited amount of energy and if we expose ourselves to too many stimulus we risk of running out of it.
Conserve your energy and spend it on your goals.
Soon, you will see that you are so engrossed in your own life acheiving your own goals that what other people are doing won’t matter to you much.
You will be much happier and content.
I write daily here on my blog. There is no limit to the word count. I am not focusing on any topic here. I want to build a daily writing habit. This is Day 13 of the Daily Writing Challenge in 2022.