I see that pictures with sunsets, city landscapes, or selfies are much more appreciated than a personal post where somebody states what she/he believes in, what worries, questions and doubts have.
I get that it’s quite boring to read what a friend is REALLY doing.
We all have our own issues, why shall I care about your issues, right? If that is the mentality you have, I dare you to think again why you use social media accounts. Isn’t it supposed to be a mean to share who You are? Not articles on global issues, business related stuff, or random quotes, you, the real you that makes you human – with joyful moments, fears, successes, trials, life-philosophies, emotions, questions.
I hear the voices of the skeptics: 1. “I don’t need Facebook to share that. I have a real tribe of people I do this with.” 2. “I use it for business purpose, sharing how cool and confident and successful I am. What’s the purpose of sharing my private life on Facebook?” 3. “Do you really show who you are 100% on FB? We need to have a private hidden life.”
You are all right.
You can choose to stay quiet on a public platform, or to share a random nice picture from your holiday from time to time, a brand you represent, or a viral article to be on the safe side. But the moment you put yourself out there and share who you are, what you’ve learnt and what you stand for today, that makes you human – that truly creates connection with friends. The connection that all humans need. When you share that some days are shitty and that is okay, that wonderful sensation of “how cool my life is” fades away in the eyes of your friends.
We all have flaws. We all fail. We all have insecurities. We cry and lose hope sometimes. We dream big and we get hurt. We are all imperfect. But if we don’t say that out loud, nobody ever will know what we are going through and instead we just create fake images of supermen and superwomen.
As much as I would love to believe that people do express their true self to their friends in the real world, I have my doubts when I analyzed the silent Facebook profile of some of my friends. The less you express in public, the less you do in private and offline.
Sharing who we really are takes COURAGE when you have to quiet the voice of “who are you to affirm that?” “you don’t speak English well enough to use it in public.” ,”nobody will understand your opinion.” Fuck those voices.
We will never be perfect.
We will never be liked by all people. I wish it was like this but it’s not.
Why not to express yourself for who you are today? Why don’t you let yourself be deeply seen? How long are you going to stay small and hidden?
These are some of the struggles I am facing now. I was taught to keep things for myself and to stay small and I know I am not alone in this. But I want to say out loud what I think. I might be wrong. I might cause problems, but I got to a moment in my life where I choose to take these risks. I know that the more I try to please others, the less I will be liked, the more I listen to my fears and insecurities, the more they define my life.
I want to embrace mistakes.
I want to speak up and be seen as imperfect as I am this moment.
And I wish more humans did the same. Because that creates a real Connection.
2 Comments
I really appreciate you for the “direction” you decided to take, by sharing these kind of thoughts, fears, doubts with the whole world and I firstly want to congratulate you for your courage. I think deep inside, from time to time, I tend to have the same problems with the world, I just try to focus on other things and don’t let them be so obvious in my day-to-day life. Except the part with “The less you express in public, the less you do in private and offline”, because I have friends who just prefer to keep their life for themselves and I can totally understand that, I agree and resonate with what you wrote. Keep up the good work and I wish you good luck in every path you decide to take! And try to stay happy as much as you can 🙂
Hey, interesting perspective, food for thought! But I don’t completely agree with some of the statements :-). I don’t think online-silent people express their feelings even less in the real world. I don’t see the correlation between this two. I mean, how many people that you have as contacts on facebook, that write you once per year because they got a notification that you have a brithday, really do give a fuck about you or look for more than just gossip material. I think I can count them on the fingers of a single hand and I am glad to call them or even meet them when I don’t feel ok. 🙂