I went home for a few days this week.
It was nice to be at home, with no real responsibilities. I had clean clothes, clean sheets and home cooked meals readily available from my mum. It was a chance for me to basically just disappear from the world.
For an alluring moment, I had the thought that maybe this is all I needed from life. After all, aren’t home comforts great?
Yet, I realised that such a view was a fantasy. I did not really want to abandon my life. My life when visiting my parents is good for a while, but after a while can be quite isolating. There is no gym nearby, and travelling to London and back each day would cost upwards of £12.
The reality was I was more escaping my problems rather than actually dealing with them. This was not actually what I wanted in life.
Escapism is certainly becoming more popular as a modern trend. The answer to worries and concerns is often to simply get rid of them in our life. Conflict in our relationships? Cut them off. Too much media consumption? Delete all the apps.
The approach is attractive because they target what we see as the source of our suffering. By restricting the flow of things that make us feel bad, we can live happier lives, right?
But such an approach only pretends the problem is no longer there. It’s fine to no longer want to be connected on social media, but only insofar as you are also happy to have less (or different) connection with friends and family.
Unfortunately, people who try this are often also lonely. So whilst it may reduce some levels of anxiety, it ends up increasing a sense of disconnection from friends.
On the darkest end, I’ve seen this lead to a lot of individualistic and selfish behaviour. Anything that is not bringing ‘positive vibes’ is simply shut out. I’ve had people in my life who used this as a justification for not supporting me because they were so caught up in the idea of ‘protecting their space’. Yet they had no qualms of wanting support from me whenever they needed it.
So instead of escapism, I think we need a more rounded paradigm for looking at the world. It’s about creating a solution that works for us as individuals, instead of blanket pieces of advice.
It’s vital that we be honest around how we are feeling, and what affect certain things have on us. If social media is a problem for us, it’s important to acknowledge that this is the case. But it may also be the case that we rely on social media for your work, friends or wider network.
From this point, we can actually see what it is that is causing us the problem. For example, it might be the amount of time spent, or the time of media consumed.
For me, I can feel anxiety if I read a lot of negative news. But it’s important I get specific, because I realise that I also want to be informed about the challenges in the world. I think this is an important distinction, because otherwise I would simply unfollow people and ignore what is going on.
I know people in the personal development world who take pride in not watching the news. On the one hand, I do get it. The news cycle is built upon headlines based upon fear. Yet I do also lose respect if they then complain about the state of the world without actually getting engaged in what is happening and/or needs changing.
So the answer, for me, is not to simply just delete the apps, or block anyone sharing stories about wars and genocides. Instead, it’s seeing the value of what I’m consuming, and returning to the reason why I do so.
By doing this, I can see that other things reinforce some quite unhelpful body image stuff for me. I can unfollow those types of posts because it’s a lot clearer-cut.
I believe this is a much smarter way of managing our lives. We act upon the values that we hold, rather than what we ‘should’ do to have a happy life.
The beauty is that through this process we can also shift the relationship we have with something like social media more broadly. When we can see that it is a tool to provide the things I want, I no longer see it as something beyond what it really is. It’s not something I need, instead, it’s something I use for my own convenience.
My work on personal development has really helped me with these mindset shifts. If it’s something you’re interested in exploring for yourself, message me.