J'écris, Vous Lisez

Throughout our lives, we keep getting reminded that too much of anything isn’t good. Yet, oftentimes, humans have this bizarre tendency to overindulge in something that’s meant to be consumed in modest amounts. This is something I can vouch for, as I spend most of my time losing sleep over watching TV shows on Netflix, or eating too many fries in one sitting when I go to McDonald’s. 

Lately, young people appear to outstay their welcome in the social media realm. Lets face it: Almost everyone in this era can be categorized as a ‘nomophobic’ or “a person who has a fear of being out of mobile phone contact.” For example, when my phone’s battery is dying and I don’t have a charger with me, I feel like I am carrying a ticking time bomb that will explode once my phone switches off; and once it does, I feel disconnected from the rest of the world until I revive my device. 

But what do we so-called millenials do on our smartphones besides getting sucked into a vortex of infinite posts on our Instagram feed and tapping through Snapchat stories of friends that we’ve met once, two years ago? For 71 percent of us—according to the Pew Research Institute—not much. 

It’s something that we are all used to—checking and re-checking each of our social media accounts right before heading to bed, the following morning upon waking up and whenever we get the chance in between. Falling prey to this routine gradually made me realize that social media can be a deceptive lens to the outside world. 

Nowadays, it’s so important for people to have a vibrant social media presence that much of their effort goes into maintaining an ‘aesthetic feed’. Convenient crops and filters allow users to reduce their experiences to little square stills to orchestrate the life they want people to think they lead. It seems as though they are giving up some good time in real life to show that they are having a good time on Snapchat or Instagram.

In hindsight, we can barely make it through a simple meal without exclaiming, “Hold on, let me take a picture first!” and then waste another four minutes strategically formatting the dishes on the table, not giving the slightest care about the people around us who just want to eat the food. Other than that, the advent of photo-sharing apps makes it a rarity to enjoy a gathering with friends without someone saying, “Let’s take a selfie!” (which, by the way, is never just one selfie). These are modern day examples of people who unplug from real life in order to document it—because they are convinced that their entire day will go to waste if they don’t post any evidence of it.

The fixation with getting “likes” and posting content that will be well received creates constant competition, where the quantity of likes and followers people have determines their self-esteem. The more followers they can garner to like their #selfie, the better they feel about themselves.

There are a few people I know who beat themselves up over not getting as many red hearts on their picture. To avoid that experience, they post pictures on Instagram during ‘peak hours’ for the sake of getting more approval. Some even delete posts that have hardly received any likes just moments after uploading them, out of fear that they will come off as unworthy. It is due to this mindset that people set unrealistic social media targets for themselves.

Such obsessive habits spell out a toxic culture of continuous self-assessment, resulting in serious declines of morale. Pakistani-American internet personality reporte and blogger Samia Khan in her TEDx Talk suggests, “This type of virtual comparison leads to feelings of inadequacy, leaving you feeling more pressured.” She highlights that the motivation behind this hyper-positivity and self-inflating behavior on Snapchat and Instagram revolves around the need to be ‘validated’ and ‘celebrated.’ 

“These affirmations are hugely powerful, because they influence and trigger the pleasure center in our brain—we’ll do anything for that little dose of dopamine,” she explains. Once we attain gratification by uploading positive posts, we yearn for it more and realize that sharing selfies and accomplishments is the best way to get it. But what we fail to understand is, that “what we see is just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. There are greater, more personal realities looming underneath the surface”, adds Khan.

Technology is a boon and smartphones are exciting tools that have taught and will continue to teach us a great deal. We literally have the whole internet (which basically equates to all that’s important about the world) at the tips of our fingers. But this makes it easier for our phones to turn from useful gizmos into black holes, diverting our attention away from reality and directing it toward a torrent of information about the lives of people we don’t really know.

The photo-sharing apps on your smartphone are not meant to be used as social crutches. Use your phone when you need to do something specific, and put it away when you’re done. Don’t get so caught up in portraying a good life that you forget to actually lead one.

I recently had a small get-together with my high-school friends. The conversation between us revolved around reminiscing about our time as students way back then, jobs, keeping up to date with what was happening with our respective lives and gossiping.

And then this topic came up: Marriage.

A female friend said this during our meeting: “My parents are very traditional; they want me to get married before I turn 30."

Another friend chimed in, “You know this so-and-so is also feeling galau [insecure] lately because she’s still single.”

This type of conversation about relationship and marriage has become a staple discussion whenever I go out with my fellow female friends who are in their 20s. The constant chatter about it prompts me to wonder - why are we under so much pressure to get hitched before we hit 30?

Out of frustration, I once asked my mother about this and this is what she said to me, “There’s this stigma surrounding women who are still not married by the age of 30 being labeled as ‘unwanted’ or ‘left over’.”

It saddened me to hear her answer because it underlies the message that for us women, despite how hard we’ve worked to make a living, or no matter how well educated you are, you’re still a failure if you don’t get yourself a husband.

A survey conducted in 2012 by Yahoo! She Indonesia found that of 7,335 female respondents asked “should women get married?” 37 percent answered no, while 63 percent preferred to settle down because “It is women’s fate”.

During a powerful TED Talk on feminism, famed novelist and writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie addresses this same issue, saying “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important.”

At the end of the video, she acknowledges the need to change a culture that doesn’t fully acknowledge the humanity of women, explaining that it is not culture that makes people but people that make culture.

If culture is indeed the thing that has shaped our mindset, then let’s change it. Culture evolves as society evolves. In the past it might have been an acceptable norm for women to just wait for a man to ask for her hand in marriage because back then women weren’t even allowed to go to school and had to be kept at home until a man agreed to wed her.

But thanks to our national heroine R.A. Kartini, who fought hard for education for girls, now we are allowed to go to school just like boys. In fact, Indonesia’s school participation rate is higher for females than males nowadays and there are more female than male students in university.

So why do we still have to stick to the old tradition that doesn’t represent the current situation of women?

In a touching advertisement by cosmetic brand SK-II that went viral a few months ago, I was so moved by the single young Chinese women profiled in the video who bravely stood up against their parents’ pressure and the status quo that label them as “leftover women”. One woman said in the video, “I have a great career, and there’s another term for that: ‘powerful woman’.”

Your success in life doesn't depend on whether men find you attractive or not, success depends on yourself alone.

Be independent, be a leader, get your dream job, pursue your passion, be who you want to be and love who you want to love.

If you’re still single in your 20s,it’s not the end of the world! Being single can help you in finding your true self; it’s also the time where you can learn to love yourself. No one can make you happy until you're happy with yourself first.

And no, I’m not implying that all young women in their 20s should put marriage on hold before they turn 30. If you do want to settle down, make sure it is because you love that person and you feel that it really is the right time for you to share the rest of your future with this special someone.

Let the decision come from your heart and mind, not from the pressure that the society places upon your shoulders :)

One day I had a conversation about life with two young friends of mine. They were in their mid 20s and full of energy.

I loved hearing about how they were dealing with the same things I dealt with. We each talked about how we had planned our life, including our career, love life, financial plans, ambitions etc.

Making plans is good because it means there is focus in our life. However, no matter how eager we are in planning our life, there are, unfortunately, things that we just cannot control.

Young people tend to make plans to study, score an ideal job or even get married by a certain age. Little do they know, the last one is something that is hard to plan for.

When I was young, I didn't set a target to get married by a certain age as I found the idea quite suffocating. What if I didn't meet a guy at that age? Would I get married just because I had planned it?

Planning to get married by a certain age when I didn't even have a boyfriend seemed too scary to me. I thought it would cause unnecessary stress in my life. Or, on the contrary, what if I met a guy way earlier before my set marriage date?

And not only that, when you are set on getting married or settling down with someone at a certain age, supposedly you pass that age and people start asking questions. Family gatherings on holidays from then on seem very hard to attend as you would have to answer that question again.

Nowadays, one is not only defined by marital status; unlike a century ago. Thus, making plans for your future, which include other people’s feelings, can be quite tricky.

When your plans fail to materialize, what happens? Perhaps you become stressed out, or worse, frustrated.

And all the fuss, for what? Enjoy your life instead. Go out see the world, work hard and prove yourself.

Then I remember my own quote:

"Planning your life into details and sticking to your plan doesn’t always work. Things in life do not go smoothly, and exactly as you plan. There are chances to take, risks to avoid, challenges to pursue and disappointments to deal with. Life is what you make it. Carpe Diem."