“Like” to Impress
That desire to be better, or even the best, burns brightly behind those sharply ambitious eyes, but a moment of self-reflection quickly darkens the mood lighting to a dimmed ambient setting. The harshness of reality brings a torrent of painful eye-awakening truths. That ambitious drive for continuous improvement loses its healthy foundation of self-satisfaction in one’s own eyes. The venomous need for validation from friends, parents, lovers, Instagram followers, and Facebook friends courses through the veins and poisons the well from which one’s “spiritual energy” is derived.
Whether we realize it or not, many of us continue on through life masquerading as a citizen of Emerald City. Our desire to keep up with the proverbial Joneses is in a virtuous cycle of reinforcement every time we “like” a friend’s post. That “like” conveys a lot more than we realize. It speaks the truth about how we actually feel about that friend’s activity, which often boils down to , “it would be nice to have that for myself” or “here’s 1-byte of activity for you to remember me by.”
To finally break free from that vicious cycle is a simple act of empathy from one person to another. To finally be recognized by someone else that he or she is great the way he or she is today is all it takes. All it takes is for you to tell that person next to you how amazing of a person he or she is just the way they are.
