TEREZUM

I had this article in mind for the last couple of days and I am finally making the time to write it. I have carefully selected the word “making” because I believe that people can make the time instead of using the excuse of “not having the time”. I have encountered numerous examples of people saying that they do not have the time. Bollocks. People make time to pet their cat and to select the poop out of the litter because they love their cat and in the same time postpone reaching out to you because they simply do not prioritize you that much. Swallow this with a good glass of wine and realize this liberating reality: we make time for people and things that truly matter to us. The rest is a beautiful decayed lie wrapped in a pretty satin ribbon to be served to you as an excuse.

I am 99% sure that whoever is reading this has been through such an eye opening experience at least once in their lifetime. You know how it feels. That feeling of knowing that you are being served a lie and yet you choose to believe it, muttering thoughts like: “Maybe he/she is truly busy”, “Life can really put a lot on your platter”, “Surely they will make time…the next time”. There is an infinite water well of self-induced lies that humans are very capable of. If it would hurt to admit the truth we would rather eat a lie. Such is our nature, fearing pain and isolation.

“But you know…life can really get hectic sometimes….for real”. Sure. Have you made the time to sit on the toilet and scroll while part of your previous ingested meal goes down the drain? Sure you did. It was important and frankly you could not continue your day if you weren’t to prioritize this. So I suggest an air-cleansing protocol for all of your relationships, friendship, work or romantic: analyze how much time the people you make time for….make time for you. Without pressing. Without pushing. Without sending the 20th emoji where you share some silly stuff in order to elicit attention. This test is brutal. I would even suggest turning off your mobile data and sit with it. How many would pick up the phone and actually make the effort to want to hear your voice in real time?

I look at humanity at this point and it frightens me to observe how shallow our social skills have become. One would prefer to text or drop a comment when picking the phone takes less time and it feels much better. I frankly believe that we are heading toward disaster when it comes to mental health because it is not natural to interact this way.

What social media managed to do was to put even more internal pressure inside the human psyche. You see…when you scroll and see someone’s success story it is easy to enter the comparison trap. If only someone would discover the marvelous you and grant you the same laurels of appreciation. At this point I would ask you: are you ready to lose a loved one or go through sexual abuse? Are you ready to lose a leg or be imprisoned for standing up to your beliefs? Are you ready to deal with an illness that everyone considers a death sentence? Are you ready to be starved and to be deprived of all of your comfort? I ask you all of these because if you study success and analyze the story of people who managed to make history you will see that their path was far from easy. How easy it is to believe that a human being is defined only by their success! People that you look up to and are considered famous have gone through immense adversity. Nobody asked them if they are ready to bury their child or their spouse only to write a bestseller after. It is easy to be lured into thinking that fame is easy. It is not. It comes with a price that not so many of us are willing to pay. There is no need to give examples here as internet is your friend and you can easily research for yourself that a marvelous journey always comes with a price. To distill pain from the experience is wisdom, as Joe Dispenza states. Yet I think that we need to look at the new world through the lens of personal experience and not through scrolling. I believe that scrolling is so dangerous and so perilous that it should be seen as a self-destructive practice. The world we live in today needs a major reboot and it is always about the story that humans tell to themselves about what is ok and what is not ok. If we come to accept something which is toxic to our soul as being the norm we are heading towards a mental health epidemic. We are not built to watch screens for hours on a day. We are not built to constantly watch what others do and feel that we are never enough. We are not built to delve in concrete jungles without any greenery to remind us of nature.

I look at every individual journey as being a part of the bigger puzzle of human evolution. At this moment we need to stop playing by the rules that have gone awry and redefine ourselves as humans and re-establish authentic meaningful connections beyond the screen. It is a journey that we can’t postpone or save for later.