The first time I saw The Devil Wears Prada at the young age of 10, I never saw Miranda Priestly as the villain we were told to view her as, but rather, the epitome of everything I wanted to be. When I was little, I didn’t dream about being a princess. I didn’t dream about being a mom. I didn’t dream about being a fashion designer. I dreamed about being a CEO. I worshipped this Devil in Prada, who had power, and money, and success, who never stopped answering emails, and always sat at the head of the conference room table. Being a career woman seemed to be something engrained in me, something that ran through my blood, and if I believed in destiny, being my own version of Miranda Priestly was it.
So naturally I dedicated my life to school, spent my extra hours in National Honors Societies, and never let anything: boys, high school football games, Proms, get in the way of this vision. Now, as a junior in college, I am the closest to my Miranda Priestly dreams that I have ever been.
And though being the editor-in-chief of a magazine has been incredible, I have found myself bombarded with email notifications, Facebook messages, and several social media platforms to keep up with. And I quickly felt like I was drowning. Here I was, mimicking the powerful career woman I had seen in movies and TV shows, the one I had always wanted to be, and feeling overwhelmed by the technological side of my job title. While I loved the fast-paced life-style involved with position, always planning the next event, and editing the next article. I have always loathed how chained to social media I felt in my life. Being the modern career woman seemed to always require being constantly plugged in, retweeting the latest tweets, and updating LinkedIn pages at a rapid rate, but is this really the case?
And unfortunately, I’ve been left with the question, can my love for the career world, and my hatred of social media coexist peacefully? Or are the business men and women of 2017 simply required to have active Twitter accounts, and updated Facebook pages? But regardless of whether or not the business world of today might demand my technological attention, I refuse to give in. Social media is a vortex, one I absolutely will not be sucked into. And while I’ve always felt this way, my excuse for delaying such a stance, and maintaining active social media accounts, has always been, “I need to be updated, and in the loop. This is part of the job description.”
But being off social media has made me a better student, a better employee, and a better leader. I feel more present. I have more mental capacity to answer emails. And rather than being focused on people who were talking at me, the ones I scroll past on my Twitter feed, I am directing focusing on people who were talking to me, and giving them the attention they deserve.
So no, I don’t think my dreams of being that Devil in Prada, and my dream of a social media-free world are mutually exclusive. Yes, I do believe I can have it all (like any career women should). And like Miranda Priestly would say…”that’s all.”