ENVY- Illusion & Bitterness...

Yesterday I had two very similar conversations with women who I love, admire, and condsider soul sisters. While the individuals are very different- different interest, goals, and personalities, they share an experience all too familiar to successful people!

Both of them have worked hard for everything they have acheived, both are beautiful, kind, caring, and generous...and both came forward wanting my opinion on how to deal with envy, bitterness, and shit-talking brought about by their apparent success. While I would love to say this has never happened to me, I would be lying...it has happened to me many times, and likely will again.

After talking to them; on opposite ends of my day, I couldn't help thinking how often this happens, particularly in our modern world with it's Instagram stories, Facebook Reels, and Tik-Tok videos, in which everyone is posting the beautiful, fabulous things they do through filters, AI, and optimal lighting!

SOCIAL MEDIA IS WHAT WE MAKE OF IT!

It's weird to post our everyday stuff online...but we do it! It's even weirder that if you are in business, you better get used to selling yourself, and even weirder that people can make a living simply by sharing their life in such a matter! I am not throwing stones, because I live in a glass house! I literally have to have an active presence on social media in order to generate the work that I actually do! In fact, no other form of advertising is equivelant to what a social media presence can do for someone.

The problem with our arm-chair reality, is we only see what we want to see...if someone wants to see a video of someone promoting themselves as shallow, egotistical, or too much, they will see that! But in truth, most of the people putting themselves out there, sharing their passion online, are doing it because its what you have to do to stay relevant, pay bills, and develop the path they are on. This is true whether its hobby or a job; without social media and 'sharing' our story, the doors often stay shut because no one realized someone was standing there!

ENVY-

Social Media shows us that everyone's life is better than ours! Better houses, better cars, better vacations, better looking! But the truth is as glossy as the images we see...much like a play, or movie, we do not see behind the scenes. We do not see props held up with 2x4's, the hours of preparation time, retakes and the hard work that goes into not only developing the thing we are passionate about, but also learning how to navigate being a world class advertiser, who is expected to produce regularly in order to stay relevant!

This belief that everyone is living easier than we are creates ENVY! The ugly cousin of admiration ENVY is filled with bittral, that eats at both the weilder and the reciever. It is a poison that grows, and when spewed over others has a tendency to contiue its corruption. In some cases, it causes great people to become small, because they don't want to be attacked. It steals hard earned empowerment, and for what? Does it make the weilder feel any better, really? I think not! In many ways it is the mind-disease of our times...

Thoughts matter, and how we direct them matters, not only for ourselves, but for the world! We are living in a time in which we are bombarded with reasons to hate the 'other', whether that is a political other, racial other, sexual-orientated other, religious other, or simply someone who is doing something we wish we could do! THE HATRED NEEDS TO STOP, and it stops with us!

Envy and the illusion of perfection someone else's life casts, are not new, nor are they limited to the influence of social media; but social media has saturated our lives and therefore the most likely place we see hatred, nor is it a new concept for goverments, and corporations to utilize this hatred to thier advantage.

I am not sure exactly where I wanted this article to go, I guess I see it as a beginning, a talking point about the reality of living in a world that is based on illusion and how our actions and words effect others; even when spewed from behind a computer screen! This technology is not going away, and our children and future generations are watching us. We need to learn arm-chair hospitality and respect, we need to remember that we are communicating with living human beings, with feelings, dreams, and often there is much hard work behind their 'glamourous' offerings.

Let me know what you think, is this something you have experienced? Are you afraid to share your power because you are afraid of the haters?

Let's be positive change-makers in the world!

spreading love-salicrow