Is Social Media Stealing Your Everyday Joy?

One was quite happy with their decent-sized house with basic amenities, their secondhand but great-shape vehicle, their kids' better-than-their-own grades, and their occasional Gramdevta temple or city garden outing followed by dinner at a local chowpati center.

It was all going pretty great until the social media culture came into the picture.

Social media, which was supposed to enhance our social bonding, instead disconnected us from our very own things. A post pops up of an ex-colleague buying a new car, and suddenly you lose the joy of riding your old vehicle. Somebody posts a 4-star hotel dinner story, and your chowpati dinner fun is ruined forever. As you see someone's Bali second-honeymoon reel, your Mahabaleshwar plan suddenly loses all its charm.

Now, nothing among your belongings can make you happy because someone else seems happier. Instead of feeling happy for them, we start feeling sorry for ourselves, and the toxic competition begins.

It becomes a relentless chase for more, more, and even more. When you post a picture of your brand-new budget car, someone throws their SUV in your face. You post your great-ambiance dinner story, and somebody smashes it with 5-star luxury. You proudly share a post of your child securing 80% with a box of pedhas in hand, and others flash their 85%, 90%, 93%, and 97% scorecards. In just a few minutes, your pedha turns from sweet to sour.

Our simple moments of everyday joy are no longer as cheap as they used to be.

Because Sam wears Fossil...

Sara carries Gucci...

Banti goes to Cambridge...

Babli gets a campus placement at Google...

Every time you open the apps on your phone, your anxiety keeps building, driving you into a "what the hell am I doing with my life?" depression.

You don't just get upset with yourself, but with your loved ones too. Because guess what?

His parents bought him a 350cc Bullet.

Her parents threw her a big fat wedding.

Her husband gifted her an iPhone.

His wife packed a 5-layered tiffin box.

Their children threw a big surprise party on their 25th anniversary.

It’s not like these things weren't happening before social media entered our lives. Things were exactly the same, but you weren't constantly getting notified about everyone's latest status updates. That is why it was easy to keep your focus on your own slow yet steady growth.

Earlier, when Sharmaji would bring that pedha box sharing the news of their new car, you would eat the pedha, genuinely congratulating them and joining in their joy. But now, when the new car, fancy trip, and bigger house posts of Sharma, Varma, Mishra, and 297 others suddenly appear on your screen, you start to feel like everyone is growing tremendously except for you. And that very thought breaks you from your core.

With everyone else flashing their lives in your face from that 6-inch screen, you lose your focus, purpose, and the vision to achieve your own dreams. Your happiness is stolen, your focus is ruined, your peace is lost, and your mental health is paying a huge cost.

Sometimes, all you are seeing is a fake show-off. Who knows the reality behind the reels?

That fancy car is backed by an 18% interest loan.

They took a 7-lakh top-up loan, and that's how the home renovation was done.

That happiest-looking couple on the cruise has marriage counseling appointments every Thursday.

His 8-pack abs are the result of steroids and supplements.

This show-off culture is making it hard to accept failures. Faking things is becoming an art of living.

Stay away from these joy thieves. Stay connected to your own life. Know the cost of comparison. Don't get trapped in peer pressure and depression. Trust the process; don't look out for a quick fix. Most of the "millennials becoming millionaires overnight" are just financial fraud tricks.

A reel is not reality. Your journey is way more beautiful than their altered status story.

Stay connected to your roots,

Stay focused on your goals.

Great things take time to grow,

Don't waste your time in scrolls.

When you see others growing, be happy for them and return to your world with a mindset to build a better life of your own. Don't get jealous, don't get depressed, and if it is too hard for you to handle the peer pressure, just mute all notifications or uninstall the app for a while.

Don't let them take away your happiness from you, because what you own today was your dream one day.

​Is it fine to fake "being fine", when inside you feel like crying?

There are two ways to look at it: One being, "fake it till you make it." And the second, showing your vulnerability where you won't be judged and crushed for being honest.

We live in two worlds: One that we are surrounded by, and one that genuinely cares for us.

The world we are surrounded by consists of our friends, colleagues, neighbors, teachers, mentors, relatives, and people we may just know by their first name. The world that cares for us is a close circle of genuine friends and, basically, your immediate family.

If you show your vulnerable side to everyone, you will be made fun of. "Victim of the century," "weakest being," "duniya ka hara," "रोतलू बेचारा"—that's how your image will be portrayed. Nobody wants that, right? That's the reason the mask we wear of being fine is not a bad choice.

But when it comes to your trust circle, you should be able to open up to reveal your insecurities and vulnerabilities. But be very cautious while doing so because sometimes your "friends" may not be as trustworthy as you believed them to be. If they turn to their other side, they might take advantage of knowing your deep-dive version.

I believe your true partner, your true friend, is your spouse, and that person should know you in and out. You may not want to show your parents your failed side because that will make them feel like they failed in raising you. You can't show your torn pocket reality to your kids because you want them to see you as their hero.

But with your better half, you must unravel the mask and be as genuine as possible because they are the true support pillars of your life. They must know what you came through, what you are going through, and what might come to you. As I always say, open communication is the key to a successful marriage; you need to be honest about your health, your wealth, your mental state, and every damn thing that can impact you and the other.

For the rest of the world, "fake it till you make it" is best only when faking it doesn't create any financial burden on yourself.

Fake being fine with a fake smile—not like faking it with a fancy car bought with a massive loan with no repay provision. Never falsify your financials just to show off. Don't buy things under peer pressure, and don't go on trips that will rip off your pocket. Be honest when it comes to affordability; there is no faking it. If they call you "कंजूस-मक्खीचूस," let them.

REMEMBER: Eating one day in a 5-star hotel and fasting for rest of the month, makes zero sense.

Is emotional maturity more important than romance in relationships?

When you tie the knot, you enter into a partnership that needs to be cherished, treasured and preserved.

But as you start walking along the side, you may feel disconnected when you can't see the same amount of zest or passion from the other. We want time, care, attention and admiration from the other but when either of these get served in lesser quantities, people flip out..

If you immediately jump to conclusions like ‘he or she might not be into you anymore', ‘something else is their priority now’, and the worst nightmare, “they have found someone else…” you may jeopardize the relationship based on assumptions without even giving them a chance for explanation.

Though you are walking next to each other, the road might be the same but you can't see the stones coupled in their shoe making it hard to walk with a straight face and you take it as they are not happy being with you…

Open communication in a relationship can be the first step towards building emotionally mature and supportive bond. If you are aware of the other person's pain points, you would try to resolve them or atleast be sensitive about it before playing the victim card.

As promoted in the movies and music albums, the hand holding, hugging, cuddling and the act of “love making” is all that counts as romance

But in true sense, holding your anger in and instead of shouting back, keeping calm till the traumatic storm passes is more beautiful…

Rubbing their back when they feel lost or broken and whispering in ears, ‘it will be alright and I will be there for you no matter what ‘ is so much more romantic than raising toast to cheer in their success party…

The physical love making is just the 20% share holder of healthy relationship, rest 80% is accounted by open communication, mutual trust, mental support and financial soundness.

Can love thrive without admiration?

Imagine you putting up heck of effort to pull something really nice for your loved one and they couldn’t show act of gratitude for what you did…

It will hurt, right…?

You might ignore it couple of times and keep trying your best to make the other one happy at every damn cost you could bear and each time they would lack gratitude, that underlying love will turn into hurt and it will keep piling up somewhere in your heart..

Admiration is the key to happy, healthy and long lasting relationship… if someone is trying to make you happy, saying thank you so much and meaning it full heartedly is the least you can do.. if you try to reciprocate the effort by making the other one happy in your way is TREMENDOUS but not even appreciating what they do for you is really disappointing…

And no matter how deeply and madly they love you, if you fail to admire it, soon it will vanish and you would be puzzled and keep wondering if all their promises and commitments were genuine or fake… Were they truly in love with you or not…?

They did truly love you. But when they realized they weren’t being treated the way they deserved, they slowly started distancing themselves. They withdrew from trying to make your life easier and chose to engage their energy elsewhere, in something else…and sometimes with someone else.

So if you want to be loved, ADMIRE them each single time as shower their love upon you… find QUALITY TIME to spend with them keeping that 6 inches worldly distraction called mobile away…

Be in the moment, try to create something MEANINGFUL than mere digital footprints… 

Coz the world is full of options, don’t make them wonder if there is someone better out there...

Does Love always test your patience?

Does Love test your patience you wonder…. 

But in reality EVERYTHING you love or hate, you worship you curse, you admire or wanna get rid off.. CHECK YOUR PATIENCE… that’s the bottom line...

Let me walk you through it…
Life from the very beginning when you were just a tiny little “sperm” checked your patience, how long can you hold on to that “egg” before it lets you in…

As an infant you have to “cry for sleep”, “cry for food”, same “cry for uneasiness” and every damn other expression… you have to “cry patiently” till you learn to express in a different genre…

You have to keep “patiently falling” till you learn to “walk on your own”.. you have to keep “patiently spilling” food till you learn to “eat on your own”..

You have to keep patience till you “get on your own” just to know the hardest part of the life truth that “being on your own isn’t sufficient…” then you have to “patiently learn to co-operate, co-ordinate, collaborate, collide and co-habit, and finally co-exist and co-evolve…”

Life makes you “Learn”…”Unlearn”… “Relearn”… 

and you have to do it all “patiently”, if you want to climb up… 

Remember, if you “lack in patience”, there are cliffs all around the hills… eagerly awaiting to swallow it’s “prey”…

So keep up with the patience in love as well as in life… and it will take you to a better version of you

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