I Realized This Only After I Quit Social Media

It’s been a year since I’ve gone cold turkey on social media.

Well actually, I still do have an anonymous account that I occasionally log into to get my dose of funny memes. There’s always room in my life for some humor.

But my main account has been locked up tight and is just lying there like a dead plant.

Life has been great since then. My productivity has gone up, my time is being utilized much better and I don’t care anymore about upkeeping appearances.

But there’s one significant change in my lifestyle that I did not anticipate.

A Decrease In My Expenditure

There was a time in my life when I wasted a lot of money on fast fashion and random clothes. I only wore these clothes once or twice.

I slowly outgrew that phase as I upgraded to a quality-over-quantity mindset, but that untameable desire to buy more and more clothes still existed.

When it comes to fashion, I’m still just a basic girl who loves wearing good clothes.

It wasn’t until I finally withdrew my social media presence that the desire started dying down, and the sense started kicking in.

You see, social media makes everybody feel like a celebrity. It’s really easy to live in that bubble.

The very nature of social media is built upon people who are not interested in minding their own business. Everybody is up in everybody else’s business.

So you feel like you owe people information about yourself.

You feel like you need to entertain people with new and different stuff. You keep buying and showing and keep repeating the loop.

Because nobody wants to see a normal person living a normal life on social media anymore.

Everybody is interested in that cool, trending it-thing.

Would you buy a tonne of pretty things if you knew that nobody was ever gonna see them except you?

No.

It’s just a recipe for wastefulness, but you’re cooking it every day.

I’m not saying social media alone makes you wasteful. But it really exacerbates any obsession you have. For me, it was new clothes and pretty things.

Every time I wore an outfit and felt really pretty, I’d upload it on social media, and relish in the glory of likes and compliments. The outfit would then be thrown into the depths of my closet, never to see the light again. Because it was never a great purchase in the first place.

Spend Less And Live More

The other day, I wore an expensive silk saree to an important occasion. My best friend had a baby girl.

I got pictures of some precious moments from that occasion. Like me holding my best friend’s baby and manifesting my dream of becoming a Mom someday.

The picture came out very sweet. It got the typical outfit-related compliments from the few close friends I shared it with. But I forgot all about that 2 days later.

What I still remember, is the precious moment that it was for me — the memory of witnessing my friend from my teenage years become a mother, and me holding her little baby girl.

My appearance and my outfit were the last thing on my mind even as I saw the beautiful picture of me and the baby that the event photographer clicked.

As far as the outfit goes, I plan on wearing the same saree on countless other occasions. I don’t need a new saree because someone and their ancestors have seen me in it already.

I have enough clothes.

I have enough things.

I have enough in life.

Our lives are in fact, abundant.

But it took me a dose of isolation and distance from social media to really, truly feel that. Not just with my clothes, but in so many other areas of my life.

Consumerism and comparison can really put you in that scarcity mindset. And social media runs rampant with it.

What’s scarce in your life is not luxury and comfort. Trust me, you have enough clothes. You have a good phone. You have a good car. You have a comfortable home.

Stop aiming to accumulate the “best” of the best. That stuff is not coming along with you to your coffin. Neither is it going to significantly elevate your consciousness while you’re still on this blue-green ball.

You know what’s really scarce in your life?

Precious moments and precious people.

Try to make more of them. Accumulate them. It’s much easier and much more fulfilling than the next it-thing that social media and society make you believe anyway.