Under pressure

The last couple of days I realized that this year it’s been ten years (!) since (like so many others) I hooked on the obsession called social networks. Ten years! So many different behaviors appeared, such crazy habits were created… Lately alongside the subject of minimalism which I increasingly recognize as my own, I try to look (on my newsfeed) from a distance, not to succumb to the massive turning into zombies (what was your year in facebook, holly crap). And since I’ve been feeling a long-established tendency for a while, I want to explore it a bit. This tendency is about the feeling that above our heads there is a cover of stiff, compressed air which presses us every day, every minute, continuously. And somewhat elusively. The feeling of Pressure.

• the pressure to be visible, active, proactive, famous
• the pressure to know and be able to do N things, because you are over 40, for example (I adore the articles with titles 5 things which every woman over 40 must know, 10 places you must visit before you turn 30, and 20 things you must have in your wardrobe)
• the pressure to keep up with all the trends and to follow at least 5 gurus in different areas
• the pressure to be informed (otherwise how are you going to make ‘informed’ decisions)
• the pressure to answer immediately to the messages on you FB page, ASAP (because you need to maintain ‘Very responsive to messages’ label at any cost, so you aren’t overrun by the competition)
• the pressure to be into the clich? (to study, to marry, to have children, to find prestigious job, to grow in your career, to look after grandchildren, to die)
• the pressure to want something constantly, because this something is missing (even if you already have it, it has to be a newer model or it should taste of blackthorns, tincture of live stones and flavor of Mars sea)
• the pressure to be thin, beautiful, sexy
• the pressure to be busy, dynamic, cool

and above all:

• the pressure to be successful (whatever that really means!)

… In her lectures Brene Brawn says that we live in a time where everything should be easy & fun, and ordinary life is no longer valued – you must be public and your success must be loud, shared and publicly validated in order to be recognized as ‘successful’. What a madness that is!

… I wander if all this is the powerful swing of the pendulum in one direction and what is waiting at the other end…

… Sometimes I feel true nostalgia for those simpler times when we called each other for our birthdays and we read our books only on paper. I realize, that the pressure can exist only if one voluntarily succumbs to all the above mentioned nonsense and requirements made up in blogs and magazines publishing houses. The more aware you are, the less you are succumbed to this exposure…I wish myself (you) an aware, slow and meaningful year.