Heart > Mind

If you have read any of my previous posts, you will know how much social media gets under my skin but, oh my goodness, it is a treasure trove for ideas of stuff to write about!  It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Today, someone on Instagram posted a lament about how frustrated she felt that posts about her upcoming wedding garnered tons of attention (i.e. likes) whereas her posts about her business or creative accomplishments didn't get as much attention as she would like, or felt she...deserved.

She went into a big thing about how she noticed that posts about engagements, baby showers, birth announcements, etc. on social media resulted in the same thing.  It made her feel uneasy.

She suggested that maybe we should throw business showers instead of  baby showers for each other.

Of course, 153,296,702 women agreed with her. (That number might be a slight exaggeration.)


Many of the comments were priceless.
"...career successes can be just as exciting..."
"Love is great but there is so much more to life." (<-- my favorite)

I'm obviously poking some fun at them here but on a more serious note, it makes me uneasy that a bunch of folks are losing the ability to see the forest for the trees.

Weddings and babies get more attention than a job promotion or a gallery wanting to exhibit your art?

Well, duh!

The reason for that is super obvious, no?

Not to mention simple.  Simply super obvious.


Love.

Big gigantic simple little love.

Heart stuff is greater than mind stuff - I'm sure that's written in the Bible and probably the Encyclopedia Brittanica or at least Wikipedia.
Einstein may have also said something similar.

Seems to me there's a lot of people who are working real hard to change that but I strongly hope that they are not successful.

I am never going to be more or even equally excited about your new job or art you created than I am about your new life with your partner or that new baby you created. That is not to say that your new job or art you created isn't a wonderful thing, it's just not on the same playing field as this:



It's just not.
I mean, I don't think I need to explain this or go into much detail about how this works, right?  We love love. Love makes our hearts beat faster and puts a twinkle in our eyes.  It makes colors brighter. You know the drill.

Most importantly though,  love makes us hopeful and happy.

Your personal accomplishments, no matter how great they are (unless they include the cure for cancer), are just not going to give me all of those things the way that love stuff does.  Plus I'm really not sure that I'd attend a business shower.  I can't imagine sitting there for hours while you unwrap the post-it notes and highlighters that were on your business gift registry at Staples.

Aside from your own self, there are people who will want to shout your achievements from the rooftop - your mom, for example. But to expect strangers on the internet to be as excited for you as your mom is...well, that's just weird.  And to be pissed off because you're not getting the amount of likes you think you deserve?  Well, that goes beyond weird and straight into the Twilight Zone or Narcissistica Land.

Oh humility, where art thou?

Oh sanity, where, too, art thou?

There are no Hallmark or Lifetime movies called Priscilla's Promotion Commotion or Sylvia's Struggle: The Quest For Likes.
There is a reason for that!




Let me ask...which story would you rather read?

1. I moved to Portland for a great new job.
2. I moved to Portland because my true love lives there and I couldn't live without him/her and when I got there I got a great new job.

Now I am not saying that your life isn't complete if you don't have a romantic partner (or children); I think you can have quite a nice life on your own if that's your choice or in the case of romance, you haven't found the right person.  You can love and be fulfilled by lots of things that aren't another person, but this isn't about that.  This, instead, is about people getting so sucked in to their popularity on social media that they think their personal achievements should be recognized and celebrated by people they've never met before in their life and that should be on par - if not exceeding! - the miracle of two people finding each other and falling in love or someone growing a little tiny human being inside their body.

I don't even know how to end this which is unusual for me.  I'm usually not stuck for words.

So maybe I'll just suggest that you be more selective and stingy with your likes and more aware of whose ego you're feeding.

Art by John Holcroft*

 

 

  

I like that idea.



 

*John Holcroft art prints available HERE