Some people watch Youtube videos of cats getting stuck in boxes to procrastinate, or dribble a tennis ball off the ceiling (shout out to the boys below my room…), but reading articles is my way of procrastinating. It’s my way of learning something new like the best make up tricks or reading opinion pieces to understand someone else’s point of view. It’s also a place for validation. When the internet exploded with “#TheDress” and is it gold and white or black and blue (clearly gold and white…), but articles were circulating the world wide web. Some claimed it was really gold and white. Others black and blue. We needed an explanation! Why? Why did we care so much?
*Photo from wired.com.
Same thing goes with one of my favorite styles of articles: GIFs. They are hilarious clips with witty captions that always seem to explain my life! Second Semester as Told By [insert TV show here]. [Insert Movie Name here] Perfectly Describes Your Relationship with Your Roommate. Why do I click these articles?
When we post things to social media- what are we expecting in return? Likes and comments, of course. There is so much emphasis on the “like to minute” ratio on Instagram or how many likes your album or profile picture gets on Facebook. Why do I care about how much others “like” (literally and metaphorically) the events that happen in my life? If it makes me happy, shouldn’t that be the only thing that matters and I just want to share my happiness with others?
*Photo from elitedaily.com.
The Dress; the GIFs; the “likes”; they are all forms of us trying to gain validation in the world. There is no “Handbook of How to Successfully Navigate Through This Thing Called Life.” We just have to figure it out ourselves. How do we know if we are doing the right thing? Living life the right or accepted way? We get validation. We know we are rational and thinking clearly if we correctly perceive The Dress the “right” color. We know we are having the right thoughts to “College Life” or “Describing my Relationship With My Roommate” or “Stages of my Night Out.”
By getting a certain number of “likes” we know that the event we went to or the people we were with are acceptable in society. And it feels good to be told that we were right! You did spring break right or college right. BUT there’s no way to know how to do spring break or college until you are actually living it. How do we know we are doing it right? We get the validation of others. Getting others’ approval is our manual to navigating life. But then the question is: do we really want to live life to just get the approval of others?