Lately, I have noticed something. And since I’m a blogger, I’m gonna tell you about it. 😉
When I’m on the internet (social media specifically) I feel like I am hearing an incessant whisper in my ear that says, “You’re doing everything wrong.”
Someone wants to tell me why I shouldn’t eat animal products.
Someone wants to tell me why eating only animal products is what will solve my problems (Go full carnivore!)
I might be eating the right foods but I’m definitely doing it in the wrong order….you have to eat the fiber first, then the proteins, then the carbs. All your problems will be solved.
(Unless you make the error of choosing a food that contains fiber, protein, and carbs all in one. At that point, just throw the food out.)
I’m using the wrong shampoo.
I shouldn’t be using shampoo at all.
I’m not using enough sunscreen.
No, wait, sunscreen is poison. We should just use beef tallow (I really have seen this.)
Marriage problems can be solved by dancing around in a dress, baking a cake, and pretending it’s the 1950s; tsk, tsk, why do people throw their marriages away so easily?
I’m wearing the wrong clothes.
(cue the “Five Fashion Mistakes That Are Aging You” posts)
The clothing colors are also probably wrong.
My makeup might be making me look older.
The way I’m doing eyeliner is so 3 years ago.
I should be doing facial yoga.
actually…I move my face so much, I think I might not need facial yoga!
I should be using a jade roller on my face.
I should be using a special straw to prevent wrinkles around my mouth.
I’m already too late to do preventative Botox. I’m screwed.
I shouldn’t dye my gray hair. Be natural!
But also: I should color my hair because otherwise I am gonna look my age (which is the unforgivable sin, of course.)
I haven’t even gotten into all the wrong ways we parent, do friendships, decorate our houses, organize our homes, make our coffee, and who knows what else!
And then there’s politics. Good heavens.
Some days, I’m able to brush all of this off and move on. But I cannot lie: sometimes it makes me feel exhausted.
It’s so much noise, and even though all these people supposedly want to help me, it feels rather…unhelpful.
No one in history has had this much “help”
I know that “you’re doing it all wrong” advice has been around for a while in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, and TV programs.
This issue is for sale right here, if you’d like some timeless diet advice
And this is particularly true for those marketed toward women.
But I don’t think at any point in the past we have had such a tidal wave of “helpful” noise hit us on a daily basis.
I mean, even newspapers generally only come out once a day!
I kind of wonder if this level of input is…not super good for us. At a minimum, I think it is not super good for me.
Am I part of the noise?
I have put out a prolific amount of content on the internet, so as I was mulling this whole issue over, I wondered if I have ever been part of the, “You’re doing it all wrong!” noise on the internet.
(I did write a, “Here are five reasons your homemade pizza is terrible” post one time, but that’s not usually my style. Ha.)
But I do seriously wonder…how do you find a balance and put out helpful content that doesn’t also make people feel like you’ve judged them or tied a heavy burden on their backs?
Is this the responsibility of the content creator?
Or does the responsibility lie more on the consumer of the content, to process the onslaught of information in a healthy way (or to mindfully reduce the onslaught)?
I don’t know if I have a good answer to these questions, but I will keep thinking about them.
Less Consumption + a “good enough” attitude
I think part of the solution for me as a consumer is to, well, consume less.
So to that end, my phone is social media-free again.
(The browser version of social media is WAY less addicting because the navigation is so much clunkier. And I have to be at a computer to use it, so that automatically makes me consume less.)
Also, a standby for me is a “good enough is good enough” attitude. I don’t think we and our world are designed to need the seriously narrow range of acceptable behavior prescribed by social media.
For a lot of things in life, there is not just one right way/method, and we don’t need to do something perfectly to reap some benefits.
If I:
- do some basic skincare (my go-to lotion)
- move my body
- wear some kind of sun protection
- eat more fruits and vegetables
- stay vaguely fashionable
- try to show up in love wherever I go
…then I’m probably in just as good of shape as someone who is stressing themselves to death trying to follow all the helpful suggestions on the internet.
