Find your joy!
This post is going to be SHORT and well…not so sweet. We have to discuss what’s going on with our youth (meaning high school and college) age kids today. Are you familiar with the stats on suicides? It’s staggering. I’m on the Facebook group Grown & Flown, and it feels like daily, we’re reading a post, written by a distraught parent, who knows someone whose child goes to college with someone who just committed suicide.
I just read that the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill closed the school for the day due to mental health issues because they had experienced 3 suicides in such a short period of time. We can sit around and talk with our partners, friends and colleagues about what’s happening -but I think it’s clear. Social media is destroying our youth. They always say, “Don’t compare yourself to anyone…you do you boo”. That’s all well and good until you have a teen or young adult who scrolls through their Instagram feed all day, and sees everything from girls with gorgeous hair, lips eyebrows and clothes, to fabulous internships and jobs post college – fun weekends tailgating at the big football schools, the right crowd, right sorority, right friend group, you name it. It’s nearly impossible to NOT compare yourself. Is social media going away any time soon? No. So, what can we do about it so that the pressure to be perfect is mitigated? That’s the conversation we need to be having with our kids. It’s not real! None of us live perfect lives. None of us love everything about our school, job, friend group, college or whatever we’re posting about. I get it, post the good stuff so it looks like you are crushing it…but we all know you aren’t telling the full truth, or these statistics would be telling a different story.
Let’s start to be real. Let’s post the vulnerable parts and support others who do too. I’m not suggesting that we all hit up social media and cry about life – not at all. But if you are trying to get a great sunset shot for the Gram, and you get there too late and you don’t get the perfect shot, snap it anyway. Post it, laugh about it, and let others know that we don’t always get the perfect shot. If you love to take pictures of your food, and you accidentally take a bite of your gorgeous masterpiece before you take a picture – post it and laugh about the fact that you were so hungry that you dug in before you took the perfect shot. Laugh about our imperfections. We are all imperfect beings, and until we show that side, this hamster wheel is going to keep spinning round and round and telling a story that simply isn’t true. Let’s talk about that perfect job after college. You’re young and you have your entire life to figure out what you love. Try new things, and don’t look at your friends who got the big internship last summer and made money when you were waitressing at a restaurant, yet finding ways to make connections that could lead to something you actually enjoy. Find your joy. Go read about the guys who started the company Pura Vida. I love everything about their story. They’re from San Diego and had no idea what they wanted to do when they graduated, so they took a trip to Costa Rica, and realized that they loved the laid-back lifestyle. They randomly met two artisans struggling to survive on their wages, took a chance on them and purchased 400 bracelets to bring home and sell. The rest is history. Find YOUR passion, find your lane, go with your gut, and stop comparing yourself to strangers on the Gram!
You got this!
