Socially Obsessed

Around March/April of this year, I vowed to myself that I was going to take a social media break for the summer. My main focus was deleting Snapchat and Instagram and I think for the month of July I’m going to get rid of TikTok too.

The reason I wanted to forgo any social media for the summer was mostly because I felt burnt out from it. It sounds stupid and for anyone who looks down on Gen Z as internet-obsessed nothing I’m about to say is going to help that, but I was addicted to my phone and the social version of myself that I curated online. Every day I felt FOMO when I didn’t check on everyone’s profile every few minutes or I based my days around waiting for people to respond to me and once I took a step back and processed that, I felt pathetic.

Why was I allowing the likes on a photo or the number of messages I got every day or how many people watched my story to dictate my happiness? And even further, why was I allowing other people’s internet presence to affect what I thought and what I did?

I wanted to take a step away from the constant flood of information and oversharing and happy faces to reconnect with myself and who I was. I know that I’ve become more secure in myself these past few years but I know there is more room to grow in my confidence so why would I stunt that opportunity for growth?

I will admit that the first week was rough. I felt like I needed to let everyone know what I was doing and thinking and I needed to make sure I was on top of everything going on, but now I don't really miss any of it at all. I don’t miss thinking about who was going to see my story or who was going to like my post first. I don’t miss trying to get the best angle on a photo to impress other people. I don’t miss the constant anxiety that came from thinking about what I was “missing.” Because at the end of the day, there is so much more to life than the digital persona you create.

I probably sound like a pretentious idiot who thinks they're “too good” for Instagram, but I know that once my hiatus is over I’m going to use it again. It’s not about getting rid of it all forever, it’s about creating a healthy relationship with it and allowing myself to feel confident because I feel confident and not because someone else allows me to be.

If you can take a social media break, try to do it for a month and I promise you’ll be better off for it. Especially if you were glued to your phone like I was.

The Good Side of Nihilism

I could have a solid retirement fund if I had a dollar for every time I questioned what I publish on this site. One of the things that I have increasingly become more aware of is how I am perceived by others. Before 2019 I was very reserved in talking about myself and what I did and who I was. I felt the need to construct the “ideal me” and only present that facade to everyone and anyone I met. However after the pandemic took its toll and I crawled my way through high school, I became a borderline nihilistic cynic—my mother’s words not mine.

And while there is certainly a negative side to always seeking the worst in the world and constantly contemplating whether life is even worth it at the end of the day, there is also a slight beauty to it. After a certain amount of time the terrifying idea of “nothing matters” turns into a freeing life motto. There are certainly better ways to come to this realization than sending yourself down a somewhat neverending downward spiral, but that is how I came to this place. A place of contentment and a kind of unsettling peace—but peace nonetheless.

Nothing matters UNLESS you fuck up so tremendously bad that you ruin the rest of your or someone else’s life (and newsflash this doesn’t mean failing a class or losing out on a job. I’m talking about like murder and stuff like that). At the end of the day, you are only one person and any mistakes you make or anything pitfalls you succumb to isn’t going to matter in the long run as long as you make a conscious effort to fix it, atone for it, move past it, or even just forget about it. This isn’t to say that you can’t make an impact as one person or that the good things you offer the world are meaningless—well for the most part yeah—it just means that overthinking is an unforgiving poison and it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself of that sometimes.

I will admit that at the beginning of this newfound—for me—idea, I found it a little discouraging. What do you mean nothing matters? I have always worked hard and constantly strive to do my best and create things that leave the world better off, and now I’m realizing that none of it matters? And yes, this is probably something you’re thinking about right now, whether or not you should even bother trying because what if nothing you do ever matters. And I’m here to say, in my “profound” not-professional about-to-be college-sophomore opinion, there is some truth to that but there is also so much more.

There is so much more to doing good work and working hard and trying to do your best than just what you produce. By relieving a bit of the materialistic and existential pressure that we all put on ourselves to one degree or another, then we can in turn make better stuff. I can’t even count how many times my own head has prevented me from jumping into something I am interested in or want to try and all of those times are missed opportunities for change and for growth. If I had just taken a moment to remind myself that it’s perfectly fine if I mess up because there are more days and more opportunities and more people and whatever, then I probably have a lot more things to show off.

So back to me, overthinking nine out of ten things I publish here. I have spent so much time afraid of being vulnerable and open and honest because I was scared that people would judge me and laugh and criticize me for it, but the more I write and tell stories and meet people I realize that the only real reason I was afraid was that no one else around me was doing it. Coming to that conclusion made me promise myself that I would be that voice in every space I enter in order to make anyone and everyone else feel a little more welcome and a little more comfortable.

Am I still worried about how spilling every little detail of my life and how I think and feel will affect the way people view me? Yes, but I know that there is at least one other person somewhere who might come across something I’ve written one day and gain a little more confidence in themselves and that is all I hope for.

My Dear Old Friend: Burnout

My new favorite item on my to-do list is simply: “ALL OF THE EXTRA CREDIT BECAUSE FOR SOME GOD FORSAKEN REASON YOU DECIDED THAT “just passing” WAS ENOUGH…NEWS FLASH IT’S NOT”

It speaks for itself and doesn’t really need any additional context but I’m gonna provide it anyways. I constantly joked before coming to college that “C’s get degrees” and that was the bar I was going to hold myself to instead of the absurdly high one I had set previously. Then I realized that I rely way too much on academic validation to ever do that. And then I ignored the well-thought advice of my peers, family, and therapist and have dug myself into a burnout cave where I simply am hanging on by a hair.

It’s funny how little I understand when it comes to time management. I don’t think I’ve ever said “wow I’m balancing really well” and was executing a time management schedule that wasn't unhealthy. Sure I thought I was the peak of balance, but in reality I was just too sleep-deprived and caffeine ridden to realize I was crashing and burning at a rate that cannot be viable.

I’ve convinced myself that being able to put everything into a calendar and show up to things on time are the only two qualifications one needs in order to be good at a work/life balance. Who cares if all I’ve consumed today is one can of RedBull and the lukewarm remnants of yesterday’s iced coffee, I successfully made the 20 minute drive between meeting #1 and meeting #2 of the day in under 15 minutes. Gold star.

As I typed that out I now realize how I sound to all of my friends and all of the dots are now connecting. They are all justified in their criticisms and I am simply incapable of being self-aware.

Anyways, I have finally come to the light realization of this fact and am now struggling to recover from the absolute dumpster fire I have created for myself. Since the beginning of this semester I have been completely blacked out, not in an alcoholic sense, in a I have no idea what I‘ve been doing with my time sense. In years prior, when I would feel the creep of burnout coming I would simply go into autopilot mode and just vibe on cruise control until I was able to stop crying and think my version of rationally. This time I reverted back to default mode, like Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Something hit my ‘reset’ button and now I’m aimlessly doing stuff in hopes something will activate me.

And something did.

Instead of the regular amount of stress and fear of failure that used to jolt me back to reality, a wave 10x that has washed upon the shores of my consciousness and now I am trying not to drown in my own whirlpool of anxiety. I am so looking forward to the summer and next year as I have adequately (I hope at least) planned out my schedule to allow me to breathe and properly function in society without breaking down. Until then, I will just run on the fumes of burnouts past and pray that I can at least go home with a fraction of my sanity.

And Again And Again And Again

If someone told me where I would be right now, last semester, I would like to say that I would laugh in their face and tell them “No way,” but I know myself better than that. I would probably just look them in the eyes and sigh a sigh of acceptance and disappointment: a combination of emotions that are too close for comfort.

I am sitting in my room, starting a project that is due in two and a half hours that I have had two weeks to work on. I haven’t done laundry in who knows how long and there are more plastic bottles and paper dishes littering my desk and floor than contact lenses in my medicine drawer. In the last few months I have allowed myself to succumb to the painfully numb feeling of nothing. I though that my usual routine depressive episodes were bad but they are pitiful against this one.

I am plagued with apathy and disassociation. There is no motive in my actions and I aimlessly wander around doing mundane things that I don’t think I am fully aware or conscious of. I walked into a gas station the other day and bought peanut butter filled pretzels and didn’t realize that I was eating them until I was back in my car with the doors locked.

At least when I have gone into autopilot mode I have purpose in what I’m doing and I am doing things that I need to do. This is something drastically different. They are uncharacteristic things and random things and things that don’t invoke any sort of reaction or emotion. It’s like when you leave your Sims alone for too long and they start doing pointless things for no reason and for no one to see.

I was so excited last semester that I had avoided any big dips in my day to day life and I was actually finding balance and adjusting to my “normal”. Maybe it’s karma for not attending any church services since getting to ASU (minus the two time I went with my parents over winter break). Maybe this is just the universe telling me that I shouldn’t get too cocky and full of myself, I apparently needed a kick to the ego.

Whatever the reasoning is, I am determined to fight it because nothing is more motivating than spite. And I intend to prove myself wrong and break out of this insufferable cycle.