i know that it's mine
February 26, 2017 • featured, life, musings, personal
For the past couple of months, I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Internet. On the one hand, it’s a very good tool to keep me informed and woke about everything happening around the world. On the other hand, I started to resent it as well. I didn’t want to use any of my social media apps, but that’s more or less what the Internet has become nowadays. Instead, I wanted to chuck my phone out the window or turn it off altogether.
I couldn’t figure out why. At first, I thought it was probably because I was so annoyed by some of the things I saw. Facebook seemed like a complete drag. There were people on there who genuinely took notice of who liked their posts and who didn’t. They kept a tally to return the favor, as though likes determined anything substantial in the grand scheme of things. On Twitter, I couldn’t take the amount of people who just complained about the most mundane things or those who grew a stuck up attitude based on the cool friends or cool job they had. I usually go on there for comedy material and the occasional political RT, but I opted to just avoid it completely, popping up every few days when I had nothing to do on my phone. With Instagram and Snapchat, I had FOMO whenever I saw anyone’s pictures because my social life has been struggling under the weight of my school work and internship.
What was funny was that I used to enjoy all this once upon a time. Hours of my day went to checking all tweets, posts, etc. But at some point, it started to change. The content, the people, and the whole culture of it.
A couple of nights ago, I was feeling really down on myself based on an interaction I had with someone online. It got me thinking about why I was still even bothering with this part of the Internet. What good did it hold other than cute pictures and videos of One Direction? Why was I trying so hard?
It took a conversation with a very inspirational friend, listening to “Mine” by Phoebe Ryan on repeat, and an ill-timed think session at my job for me to slowly realize and come to terms with everything.
I have been on the Internet since my early teen days. It’s been over a decade of me working through social media sites, and during this entire time, I’ve been searching for validation online. It had become a place for me to try and show people there that I am “somebody.” Somebody who is talented, has cool friends, an exciting life, and something worth Instagramming and talking about. This was why I had gotten upset that night -- because I had come across someone who had made me question if I was actually accomplishing that. What if I’ll just spend all my years trying to show people what I’m worth? What if I’ll always just be average?
But the truth is, I am somebody. I’m somebody who works very hard in everything she does, no matter how inconsequential. I’m somebody who has great friends and is a great friend back. I’m somebody who is working toward her goals and maybe some of them are taking too long to accomplish or leading me places where I wasn’t sure I wanted to end up, but that doesn’t mean I’m not somebody.
My same friend said to me, “Learning to like things for what they are and being confident in them when others don’t validate you is something we needed to learn,” and I couldn’t agree more. I want to be proud of the life I’m leading and be proud of the fact that I got here myself. Through my dedication and hard work.
I don’t need validation from the Internet anymore. I’m confident in what I’m doing and that’s all I really want to care about. I don’t feel the need to prove all this to anyone online either because at the end of the day no one cares about the fun life you have or the cool friends you made or the exciting job with the exclusive perks you get. If you’re a good person who is good to others, then no one should have to try so hard.
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