A popular meme trending now is ‘what is wrong with me? I haven’t tested positive’. In the grip of social media likes getting the Covid is a positive.
Traditional suggestions of exercise, meditation, sleep, and diet, all of which you can benefit from if you practise the ashtanga yoga instead of pretzel yoga, are not enough for today. We crave attention. We want to be liked; on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and every other idiocy we are engaged in. If we are not liked enough, we experience insecurity, invalidation and depression.
This process is a viscous cycle of decreasing satisfaction even with increasing likes. No number of likes will do unless they exceed the Hollywood or Bollywood celebrity role model. Obsession overcomes rationale. How do we get out of this roller coaster into a hell of our own making?
Do you know what makes you happy? All that you think makes you happy, money, fame, power, good looks, and retail therapy have no effect on your happiness, much as you may expect them to. Even when there’s a temporary high, the euphoria vanishes within a short while Familiarity breeds contempt; in this case depression.
Prof. Laurie Santos’ Science of Wellbeing Coursera free program, based on her most highly popular Yale class, statistically confirms this truth of our ‘miswants’ through multiple studies and books. What then does make you happy?
Pretty much the same as what the Buddha, Jesus, Dalai Lama, Yoga and Easter philosophies said would make you happy: giving up material wants; not comparing and coveting; kindness; compassion; love; giving and gratitude; and good sleep, exercise, diet, yoga and meditation. Nothing is ever new in this universe, is there?
Go back to basics. Tally what you still have, despite anything the pandemic may have taken away in comparison to billions who are worse. Even if you lost a loved one, you’re still alive. You can still do something in their memory, by serving another in kindness and compassion. If you need to connect, even in the vile social media landscape, connect in compassion, humbly, in praise of another, and not for likes.
Social media is powerful. It’s not evil. Those who manipulate others and themselves are. You, as one person, can break the chain. Be different. Be well in chaos. Post a message of kindness that will make at least one person better. Do it now.
