Tag: social media

A Request

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Who We Are Today has been in existence for about 8 years now. Over this time, I’ve discussed different social issues that affect South Asian Indian Americans. But most of it has been from my sole perspective.

Everyone has stories. Everyone has different stories. Some are unique to us as Indians who migrated and became the first generation in their families who settled in the US. Some are unique to us as the first generation growing up in America. We all have something that happened to us that caused us to stray from our traditional path and create something new. We all have something that we needed to break away from. So now I want to share these stories.

Because if we don’t share these stories, who will?

Growing up in America means that the only history I grew up with was the one with Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue and discovering this country. Obviously, we now know that that’s not exactly the way it went. I definitely didn’t know as much about Indian history as I would have liked to. Anything that I’ve learned has been through Hindi movies and maybe a few books in recent years.

Most of us know someone who lived through Partition and some of the major wars that India participated in. Freedom fighters, Emergency, immigration, bullying, arranged marriages, love marriages, divorce, death, these are all discussions that shape us whether we grew up in India or in America.

So I have a request. I would like to share your story. It could be about your experience growing up in India. It could about breaking away from the traditional path while growing up in America. I believe every story is worth telling. We have lived through something important that others would benefit from hearing about. We are a huge part of this world and I think it’s time we put ourselves out there.

If you’d like to participate, please email me at whowearetoday@gmail.com or message me on social media. I’m open to any story you’d like to share as well as protecting your identity if you aren’t ready to put your name out there in the world.

I hope we can do this together. Thank you.

Real World Stuff

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I had to stop going on Twitter and reading the news. Even then, yesterday, I saw a random headline pop out at me on my phone and it completely stressed me out.

What is the world coming to? The funny thing is that I’m completely aware that all of these problems existed before but a combination of I was too young to understand and no internet helped me to live in my bubble.

Now, the bubble has popped. No matter where we are, we are bombarded with information. And honestly, something bad is always happening. It doesn’t help that we are in a time when we have a leader that doesn’t know how to lead.

How does this affect us in our daily lives? For me, it sometimes makes me feel stagnant. I move because I have to but I’d like to crawl up in a ball and just hide until things get better. I have to also keep hope that they will get better but right now, that is definitely hard to see. So I freeze. I don’t know how to feel okay with the way the world is right now but I don’t know how to change it.

Social media also doesn’t help. It seems as though there are people who are still living in their bubble. I know it’s probably not true and they are probably just as worried about the state of things as I am but I wish I could at least feel that carefree sometimes.

I think having kids affects how I feel a lot. I worry about the future of the planet and the future of this county and how they will do within it. There are some days I wish they were still babies so I could keep them home and keep them safe.

Will it be possible to feel okay again? Is this temporary or is this the way we will be living now? Will these worries ever go away? Can we please get some good news for once?

The Positive Of Social Media

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When you scroll through social media, it’s easy to be jealous of what you perceive other people’s lives to be like.

I get this way all the time especially since my life at the moment revolves almost completely around my kids.

Then, I realized something. The person I was consistently wishing I was like is someone I could talk to because she has been through what I’ve been through. So I did. I messaged her and she and I spoke for a bit about what I’ve been feeling and where I was stuck.

This is someone I knew entirely through social media so I had no idea if she would be someone I could confide in or if she was someone that would get me. But she did. She told me about how she felt when she was in the same life situation as me and how she moved on from there. She told me about her coping techniques. It was helpful.

I know there are a lot of negative things you could pull from social media but there are a lot of positive things as well. If we see someone doing something positive, instead of being jealous, we can try to learn from them. We can find a way to use other people’s experiences as resources and help ourselves get through whatever we need to get through.

 

Get It

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I want to be really good at just one thing. I want to be known for at least one thing.

Let me explain to you where this came from. Everyone has their thing. I follow enough people on social media (and honestly, in real life as well, because as we all know, social media is a little bit of a fantasy world) to see who have hobbies or careers where they are living it up well. They have made something they enjoy into something that they can really live for.

I want that. And while people who know me might say that I am also doing that, it sometimes doesn’t feel like it. It could be that time just travels so slow so it’s hard to see things changing as we are going through them. And one day, I’ll wake up and realize that I have been doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. But it’s frustrating right now at this moment.

I constantly tell my kids that they have to learn patience. It seems as though I need to learn it as well.

Do any of you ever have a reaction when you think about what you want to accomplish? Lately, when I think about this one particular dream I’ve had since I was a kid, I get this immediate negative reaction where I can’t even think about it because I start getting anxious. Trying to analyze the feelings makes me anxious as well. It’s like I already want to believe I can’t achieve it. It’s a horrible way to feel. And I give my usual excuses on why I will fail at it. I don’t have enough time right now, I have other priorities, how would I even start, etc.

I want this feeling of accomplishment, like I set out to do this big thing and I did it. I’ve done it before with other dreams so there’s no reason why I can’t do it again.

What are your dreams and/or success stories? What have you accomplished that you’re super proud. Please share and let me live vicariously through you and inspired by you.

I Don’t Like Overly Enthusiastic People…

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…especially if it’s not real. I feel you can tell if someone is totally BSing you. You can tell if someone responds to something and it just seems like they are saying what they think is expected of them.

It seems like, at some point, a message was sent to the world saying that if you like something, you must be overly enthusiastic about it. I don’t know if it’s just social media driven or in general. You must be “obsessed” with something or it has to be “amazing” or it is the “best” thing you ever saw.

Seriously?

Where did reality go?

Sometimes, clothes are just clothes. Sometimes, a story is just a story. Sometimes, things are just “good”.

What is this image that people are trying to portray? Why do they feel like they have to 1) respond to everything and 2) absolutely love it? Doesn’t doing this diminish the value of what they are saying?

I’m not talking about kindness or positivity. I think those things are necessary to cultivate in real life. I think it’s possible for a person to be kind and/or positive without all the BS.

I’m just honestly talking about the over-the-top responses that things in this world receive sometimes. Sometimes, I have trouble believing what someone is saying just because their answers seem fake and just something that people want to hear.

In my opinion, real answers (or no comments if you aren’t going to say something kind) are better than fake. Otherwise, how can I trust what you’re saying?

If you can explain this to me, I’d love to hear.

Why It’s Time To Take A Facebook Break

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Yesterday, I wrote a post where I was wondering who I am.

Today, I realized the best course of action would be to take a break from Facebook.

I love Facebook for so many reasons, the main one being that I can keep in touch with my friends and family from all over the world. It allows me to be a part of everyone’s lives even when I’m not able to see or talk to those people regularly. I also get to be a part of so many different groups and have been able to make friends via social media throughout the world.

But, on the flip side, it’s not real. We only see what people want us to see. It’s not a bad thing to be able to celebrate the good times and experiences that others have until things aren’t always where you want them to be in your life. Then, you end up focusing on what you imagine to be their perfect lives to be like and how imperfect your own life is.

You forget to see the good happening in your own life. You forget that the lives of others aren’t perfect either. And when social media becomes a negative instead of a positive aspect of your life, it might be time to step away from it. It might be time to put Facebook, Instagram, Twitter in the corner while you figure out what is important to you and your life.

This is where I’m at right now. I want to be able to focus on me again. I want to focus on my family. I don’t want to sit and obsess about the lives of other people and how it seems so much more exciting than mine.

This isn’t the first Facebook break I’ve taken. I had to do this in 2012 when I felt like a part of my life was just not moving in the direction I wanted it to go. It helped me tremendously. It felt great to refocus my energy off of social media and back onto myself and the people I love. I was able to shift my mind towards the things I wanted to accomplish instead of just feeling bad when others accomplished something. I was able to be happy for my friends when good things happened to them instead of just jealous that they weren’t happening to me.

So, in my efforts to shift my energy in a direction that I can be proud of, I have decided to take a break from Facebook.

 

How Important Am I Really?

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With today’s social media, it is really easy to start believing that we are important. It’s easy to believe that people really care what we say or what we do. It’s easy to proclaim that we know a lot of people and that they really are interested in what we have to say. Here is my question: Are we really that important?

Wouldn’t someone who really wanted to know what is going on with you get in touch with your personally? Wouldn’t experiences be shared in person rather than just online? Do we really need to record every moment and post it for everyone to see?

Sometimes, my tweets will literally read, “I wonder if anyone cares about what I’m saying right now.” I honestly don’t think most people do. I know I scroll through a lot of things. What could I possibly say that would make everyone jump for joy at my words?

Honestly, I think most people are more involved in their own lives than looking at everyone else’s life. That’s how it should be. We should be living in our moments rather than paying attention to everyone else. Sharing isn’t a bad thing but when are we oversharing? When are we starting to believe that what we do on a daily basis really makes an impact on the world?

I understand the irony of sharing this article via social media and hoping to get people to read it when I’m discussing how we give ourselves a false sense of self-importance. What can I say? We all need some attention.

Passion or Validation?

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Have you ever heard someone who talks about something they’re into and it is the most amazing thing they have ever experienced? And then they talk about something else and it’s just as amazing? Does it ever seem like some people are just really overly passionate about a few things?

I was wondering this the other day when I had heard a few people discussing different restaurants they had been to. Was it a real passion? If so, is it necessary to really emphasize what you feel or think about it?

I had always thought that if someone had a passion for something, it’d just show. You would notice by what they did or how they spoke about it. When people really get that over-excited about something, is it real or is it a show?

Maybe these people are really that enthusiastic about the things they talk about. Maybe passion about something just runs over and there’s no other words to describe it.

But maybe, sometimes, people are just a little too passionate because they want to sound like they really care about something. They want to validate that their opinions are important. Maybe if they sound passionate about something, other people will respect them more. It’s kind of like the whole idea of posting everything we think or do on a social media site just so we can count the likes and comments we receive.

When did we become so needy for others’ approval? Why do we have to be something we aren’t? Why can’t we just be satisfied in knowing we enjoy what we enjoy and not have to get validation for everything we do or say?

See Your Phone? Put It Away!

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15 years ago, if you went to a social event and you didn’t know anyone there, you had 2 choices: you could either try to make friends or you could sit in a corner and be by yourself. Now, you have a third option: you can sit by yourself with your phone out.

Have you noticed that people seem to be beyond addicted to their phones? I went to a social event recently and even though all of us don’t see each other that often, there were a few people around the table still on their phones. There’s definitely a range of what they could have been doing. I’ve seen people sitting on their phones in a social setting and playing games, texting other people, or just surfing the internet.

I’m not saying it’s the end of the world but honestly, doesn’t it worry you just a little bit? I want my kid to learn how to talk to people. I think a lot of us developed the ability to be social because we didn’t have the phone as a crutch when we were growing up. Now it seems that it’s used as a distraction in all cases.

You see it all the time. How many of you have seen 2 people sitting at a table at a restaurant and both have their phones in their hands and neither is talking to the other? I have had people talk to me but, at the same time, have an ongoing text conversation with someone else.

What’s going to happen if you don’t look at your phone for a few hours? We used to get by without having constant access to the outside world all the time. If something wasn’t happening in the exact location we were at, we didn’t know about it. Is that so bad? Why are we so scared of missing out on what’s going on somewhere else?

Also, why is what’s going on somewhere else more important than talking to the person that is sitting across from you? Why is it more interesting? The funny thing is that we could be with that other person and we’d be sitting on the phone talking to someone entirely different. Sometimes, I don’t even feel like talking to someone who seems to be more interested in their phone/text/social media conversations than in speaking with a real, live, present person.

There was one time I had gone on a vacation with my family. I was so tired of dealing with the outside world that I decided that I wanted to live in the moment. In order to accomplish that, I decided to leave my phone in our hotel room. It was liberating to not be so attached to something. I was able to really focus on hanging out with my family.

I know we all need our phones. I have a kid. I like to be in touch when I’m not with her just in case she needs me. But I do want to be able to put my phone away when I’m with other people and don’t need to necessarily be in touch with someone that isn’t present. I want to be able to focus on the moment at hand. I want to be present and be able to socialize with the people that are right there next to me.

Can you do it? Can you put your phone away and not look at it for a few hours? Can you break the addiction?