“Everything ends and it’s always sad, but everything begins again, too. And that’s always happy. Be happy. – Return of Doctor Mysterio”
Change is the only constant, have you heard?
And it’s the one thing that constantly keeps me grateful, able and willing to face things as they unfold.
A few weeks ago, Google Plus announced that they will be shutting down within the year. This led to a lot of upset among the G+ community with members bemoaning the fact.
But the truth is, that every single one of them will adapt. They will find other platforms to showcase their content. They will build new communities and the best part is if they have a blog or website, their audience will stay with them even when Google + meets its imminent demise.
Do you remember Orkut? It died a natural death too. The same can be said of numerous social media platforms, tools and channels like StumbleUpon, TwitterFeed, MSN Messenger, Vine and MySpace.
If we were to judge our worth by the number of followers and friends we had on these platforms, we’d be pretty devastated by now, right?
What about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram? Who is to say what would happen to each of these spaces in the next 5 or 10 years? There’s no guarantee. None.
I say this with the full and wholesome acknowledgement that a large part of my income comes from these platforms. But I am not attached to any of them.
It’s also the reason why I have tried to consciously distance myself from the stream of outrage on social media. A rant on Twitter won’t solve anyone’s problems. My outrage on Facebook will not manifest world peace. Ranting and venting are slowly harming you in more ways than you realise.
Take a deep breath. Pause. Reflect. Contemplate.
For me they are tools. These are tools that help me connect with people, figures behind a screen, those with actual problems that I believe I can help solve.
The beauty is all of these platforms can and will end one day. But hey, we’re still here. So there’s a lesson in here.
Whether it’s relationships, work, blog or social media, every single thing will end some day. Don’t base your worth on the terrible comparison of what you see online. It’s all false. All of it. Nobody’s life is perfect. It’s all a fragmented section of their reality that you get to see.
The one thing we can do while everything exists? Learn to cherish it and then let it go when its time comes.
Isnt this in resonance with the fact that nothing is constant in life. Loved reading it .
I love Twitter, especially the bookish community. Of course we will learn to survive without it, like you said. But we will find something else to obsess over any way. I loved your philosophical take!
That is so philosophical Shailaja – you’ve turned into a little Buddha :-). Yes everything comes to an end. That holds true for life itself. Not getting attached is hard but we need to choose the things we get attached to. Social media is certainly not one of them but the blog most definitely is.
I find twitter so full of rage and unhappiness. It’s like all the angry population lives there. While instagram is like a place where everything is going right in people’s life. And both are nothing like real life. I know someone on instagram, with over 100k followers, was hacked and the hacker was demanding money to give back the account.
True one day these platforms would be replaced by something more shiny. There’s no point attaching our emotions to something so superficial and temporary. As you said, treat them like tools ?