Feeling lost may be inevitable
Nowadays, the paths that one can choose to take have increased as compared to the past. Whether it’s a route of mandatory education or a choice of home-schooling, the information available for each of these options is becoming increasingly more accessible with the connected world and the shift in the underlying mindset and culture.
With more people sharing their lives on social media platforms, the internet, and social apps, it may be more probable for one to chance upon a lifestyle that’s presented as ideal on these platforms. Exposure to these different lifestyles that others are living may spur thoughts and actions for a change in one’s own lifestyle. Yet, seeing how others presented their lives to be and trying to live like how they do are two different things. Remember that one can be selective about the things that they choose to post online, not every aspect of their lives is included. The topics they choose to share, the videos that were carefully selected and cut according to their agenda and how they want to portray themselves, and the objective and message that they try to put across in each video, will affect the content. Nobody likes pain and suffering. Hence, the proportion of the videos that share the good things as opposed to the bad things of the influencer’s lifestyle may not be balanced.
There are also underlying recommendation engines on many social platforms that learn your personal preference and could trap you within your own “echo chambers”. Suppose that you are interested to switch into a remote work lifestyle (akin to “digital nomads” that many influencers are raving about), you’ll tend to search related videos of creators who are living such a lifestyle. When you have a strong inclination towards the switch, there is a tendency to look for evidence and content supporting the unconscious decision that you may have already made in your head (i.e., confirmation bias). Videos of similar content would appear in your recommended feeds, videos, shorts, etc. That could just trigger a decision to change your current lifestyle. That could mean resignation from an on-site 9–6 role to taking a short hiatus from your career to travel around the world while working as a freelancer or part-timer (remotely or on-site) while searching for a role that could fulfill the lifestyle you had in mind. When you’re actually experiencing the challenges and opportunity costs that come with the change, you may then realize that it may not be what you wanted in the first place. Feeling lost trying to figure out what went wrong and why — are you relying on introspection or searching online for an answer?
As information exposure increases, the more we’ll need to be more critical about the information and content that we’re exposed to each day. Some of them are crafted carefully to make us feel a certain way (i.e., the way that the authors or creators want us to feel). But do we really feel that way? Is that a need or a want? What are we really giving up if we give up the control of our mind and autonomy to think for ourselves?
