Suppressed thoughts and feelings, these of which I have one too many.
What's happening? What's on your mind? What are you feeling right now?
All of this can be taken to social media to be posted and shared but then again, what good does it do? I guess maybe for some people it might help in a way, but it doesn't for me. Every move I make online, every word I say, every picture I post, I feel people are always watching, judging.
Attention can be good at times. Sharing optimistic thoughts and or funny things on the internet spreads happiness. Retweeting things that need to be known by the world raises awareness. But at the same time, there are people who are judging, making assumptions about the kind of person I am with the way I tell the world how I feel. Even right now, as I type this, I'm having second thoughts about whether or not I want to post this up.
Good attention or bad attention will always be present, no matter what you do.
Of course, I know of people who literally do not care about what other people think, some of them better known as "keyboard warriors", who whatever it may be, will take out their feelings, opinions and thoughts to the world wide web. These people think that it doesn't matter what other people think of you or that it's nobody's place to judge you or have a say in your life since, well, it's your life, that as long you are enjoying what you're doing or as long as it is something that you want to say or do, then just do it. Because who's to really care, right?
And then I know of people who have social media accounts but share close to nothing with the rest of the world. You rarely see them tweet or post or share anything but they are there silently scrolling, reading through what other people have to say about their lives. These people keep their honest thoughts and feelings to themselves because they're either afraid of being judged or they really just don't care about telling the whole world about it. I have a friend who had Snapchat but she deleted it soon after because she said "I'm not the 'hey world, this is what I'm doing right now' kind of person y'know."
It made me think.
Does it really matter?
Do I really need to show my friends on Snapchat what time I slept last night with a snap of a black screen with the time stamp? Do I really need to take pictures of all my meals and let it get cold and kinda icky to eat before I get the perfect picture? Do I really need to tell everyone that I'm feeling very sighing emoji or very smiling poop emoji? (They should have a sad face poop emoji, anyway.) Do I really need to make sure I take insta-worthy pictures every time I'm out with my friends? Do I really need to fake candids to have nice pictures?
Don't get me wrong. Not that I'm saying that people who do do these kinds of things are wrong, because it's not. And I'm sure all of us have done something from the above at least once, or twice. What I'm trying to say is that some people place too much of importance on these things rather than focusing on the people there with them at that moment.
People who know me well enough know that I really, really dislike it when people stare at their phones the whole time when they're out with other people. I mean, if you really want to be texting that person so much then why are you out with me? I don't know why I seem to mind it a lot, but I feel like if someone took time off their day to look at your face in real life, have a proper face-to-face conversation with you then why would you still want to be texting other people? I've seen so many couples, families even that have all of them just typing away on their phones and not talking to each other.
I like the balance my friends and I have with these kind of things.
Sure, we pick spots with good lighting, dress up with matching colours for photos, take nice pictures of our food and all, but we don't let it consume us and let it take 90% of our time with each other. The fact that we can sit at a dining table for hours, having our last seen be 3 hours ago and just spend actual quality time talking, laughing, sharing with each other makes me appreciate them so much more. (Shoutout to my friends who are amazing!! You know who you are.)
Now, think about it.
When was the last time you had a proper conversation with somebody without having to check on your messages every now and then? When was the last time you just ate your food without taking pictures of it? When was the last time you went out with your friends and not take fake/real candids of each other? When was the last time you dressed up just for fun and not take #ootd shots? When was the last time we did anything offline that didn't end up online?
Again, I'm not saying that appreciation posts, nice photos of food and friends are wrong, let's just not let our whole lives revolve around it. So let's close our Snapchats and Instagrams and Twitters, put our phones away, turn off our wi-fi (and our data), look our friends in the eyes and tell them how genuinely thankful we are for having them spend time with us. Let's not ruin a real moment with thousands of photos and recordings that will never be as meaningful as experiencing it in it's entirety.
Just let the moment be, and be in it.
