Get Over Yourself

My generation, The Millennials, Generation Y, has recently been given a new name, The "Me Me Me Generation". ("The Me Generation" was already taken.) Where does this come from? Perhaps our newly acquired, at times frenetic, need to share everything about ourselves on various social media profiles scattered across the internet, a need to share show off our wonderful selves with our friends the rest of the world.

Where do we get this "need to share" from? The greatest problem with consciousness, of seeing life through our eyes alone, always has and will be the overbearing sense of self-import we appropriate to ourselves. You may think you are the centre of the universe, but let me assure you. The universe has no centre, and therefore you cannot be it. However, contrary to the well-established tenets of astrophysics, many of us still believe we are.

The statistics speak for themselves. 58% of college students in the US scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982. Let's admit it: we're all a little utterly obsessed with ourselves. When you first discovered YouTube, didn't you fantasise about becoming a YouTube celebrity? Didn't you think you could make it? Three times as many middle-school girls would rather be an assistant to a famous person than a senator, says a survey conducted in 2007; four times as many would pick the same assistant job over being a CEO of a major corporation. Cray cray. We all hate Kim Kardashian, who regularly admits that she has no talent, but we all want to be her; in truth, we are as jealous of her as we are indignant that the rest of the world has not acknowledged our own awesomeness.

Partly this has been due to the way we've been brought up. We've come to love giving accolades more than appreciating genuine achievement. How many meaningless trophies do you have on your mantelpiece that reassure you of 'how special you are'? How many times were you patted on the back, comforted, and convinced of the grandeur of your paltry achievements when you grew up?

But technology has also played a part. Technology has been a great enabler of things, and it has also enabled us to nurse the celebrity ambitions we've always had. Having such ambitions isn't a problem: celebrities are enviable by definition, but by the same definition not everyone can be a celebrity. I wish everybody could understand this, then some might not need to go through the great lengths they go through for a chance of stardom. The worst cases are those where somebody 'loses him/herself' in the process. Don't laugh, it's totally possible; I'm sure you can think of somebody like that right now, somebody who uses all the #'s available on Instagram/Facebook, who asks you to like his/her photos, or share their content, somebody who joins all the latest trends, who tries to start their own trends, who has to always be "in the know". It's great if that's who they really are, but that's rarely the case.

Don't live in a bubble. Be yourself.

We're all guilty. Think about the recent trend of #RKOI and how you feel when a 'Facebook friend' posts an 'awesome picture' of him/herself clubbing/travelling/doing something exotic/eating something exotic. At first, it doesn't seem to affect you, but in the end, we end up censoring ourselves to achieve the same "awesome status". We curate our content. We check how many likes our posts get. We compare with our 'friends' AKA "the b*tch who you really ought to be more popular than. And in the process, some of us miss the point of social media entirely. Social media is meant to show the world who you are, not to aspire to be something you aren't. 

Don't be trapped by the social media you create.

A few things in particular:


1) #selfie 

Selfie was the Oxford Dictionary Word of The Year in 2013. Compared to 2012, usage increased by 17000%. And now in 2014, hardly a day goes by where you won't find a #seflie#nomakeup#[bland hashtag with no meaning] on Instagram or even Facebook. This exponential increase in societally-acceptable narcissism presents its own problem: narcissism is associated with a lower levels of empathy, and this is not good. Narcissistic people are also often unhappy and angry at the world for its failure to recognise their superiority/beauty/[insert whatever value you identify with]. Does this sound like anybody you know? A world full of narcissists would be a sad world indeed.

Be more empathetic and less narcissistic. The next time you take a selfie, keep it if it makes you happy, but think about the message it sends out before you share it, and if selfies are the only pictures you send people, re-read this.

2) Need For Instant Gratification (NFIG)

When was the last time you played a game (if you play games) that was challenging and required a decent investment of time before giving you any 'rewards'. If Candy Crush required more than five minutes of attention, would as many people play it? I used to play World of Warcraft, and when it originally came out in 2004 it took 15 days of playing time to reach the maximum level, at the time, of 60; now, 4 expansions later, you can 'max out' in less than 10 days, and reaching level 60 is doable in only 2 hours.

But, this NFIG doesn't apply only to games. I recently tried out codecademy, a website that has great courses on various coding languages, and completing each lesson (~2 minutes of effort) gave me a giant green tick across my screen. Successfully finishing my first lesson, which required no coding, offered me the opportunity to share my "First Lesson" ribbon over all forms of social media. Luckily, I spared all my Facebook friends from that.

Think about relationships, financial planning, and personal development. If you can't control your NFIG, these things can all fall to pieces. Want to delay the 'important talk' with your S.O. until after The Game? Want to buy that car before you pay your mortgage off? Want to surf 9GAG all day instead of doing your work? You're gonna have a bad time.

Realise your own insignificance, that the world is not trying to satisfy you, and thus learn to control your NFIG.

3) Engage In Things That You Enjoy

Don't go to a rave so that you can take a picture to show your friends. Don't shave half of your head off so that your friends will worry endlessly about your sanity. Don't dress in neon colours (unless that's your style, zero judgement here) so that half the street will turn heads when you go outside. 

--

Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so that the world can see you.

If I caused an existential crisis because of your lost "special status", I apologise. But remember, if everyone is special, then nobody is special. Just be true to yourself, and fug all the rest. Repeat on a daily basis, as if a mantra, "I am not the centre of the universe". Without this sense of celestial entitlement that we often grant ourselves, the world is a much more manageable place.

~~ Fin ~~

P.S. 

1) Speech by David Foster Wallace, This Is Water. I can't give a description that would do it enough justice, but it's mainly about how real education is about being able to decide what has meaning to you and what doesn't. You can choose your own value system, you can decide whether the world is against you, or whether you're just seeing it that way. Paraphrased video version available here.

2) You Are Not Special, a commencement speech. I pulled quite a few phrases from here. It's mostly inconsequential. (It's a high-school commencement, who pays attention?)

3) It's not that bad to realise you're not special. In fact, it's rather liberating :).

4) A tip: When you post something on Facebook, press "Stop Notifications", you'll have less anxiety over "how many likes you get", and you can just get on with the rest of your life.

The Key to Sanity