Life , has always been very much generous to me . Well, at least that is what I like to think . Very frequently there will be always that moment , when I think I am happy with whatever I have . I don't own the latest model car , my professional life is at a standstill , I am not the fairest of them all, but I, still , am happy most of the time. I think it is an inherent quality that I got from my father. Before the tsunami of the trend " less is the new more" , my father used to practice it very well , I guess we would call him trendy today !! But coming back to the point , I am happy most of the times , cause I can extract(if you want , call it powerful imagination) the happiness from absolutely anything . Someone much more famous and controversial than me once said " True happinesss comes from things that are free of cost " FYI this "free of cost" did not imply for the buy one get one "free" kind but free things like mother's love or a flower or sunshine . I am completely aware of the fact that one can buy flower or a ticket to Caribbeans , but lets just focus here .So , bottom line is, I am a basic happy person . But not 100% of the time . Why not??Other than the much obvious legit frustrations of being a human being, I have come to the conclusion that I am really conscious about other people's approval or in common language , my friends activity on my facebook homepage , I hate to say it but it is the truth . I might be alone in this (pretty sure I am not) whenever I see one of my "friends" not liking my photo , a small cloud comes on top of me , making me think if he is not liking my posts , may be he doesn't even like me . Don't worry , the cloud is imaginary!!As much as I want to avoid taking it seriously , it affects me badly. Day by day the cloud morphs in to a giant one and before I know it I am avoiding my friend , on facebook of course. Day by day , the distance increases and at one point I have to re-calibrate myself with the whole situation which means gradually the virtual distance turns to a mental one , unless , that friend gets married or pop out a baby(cute baby is optional here) , in that case , I start liking all of his/her posts without even looking at it . This is a viscous cycle. After talking to a number of my friends and some unplanned careless but absolutely eye-opening research , I am sure we have entered a new era of friendship. Say , a friend of a friend , you met that person once or twice via the mutual friend . sends you a friendship request , you being the normal person accept it and Voila , you are friends. Then a rapid overview of the person , then he is just there . Starting from that day , he starts to give a couple of "approval "s here and there , couple of "cool"s and "awesome"s and "congrats" and hey , don't lie to me, you like him already !! So, now YOU "approve" his going to a concert of "Kanye West" and write "I want some!!" on his photo of a late night cooking of mac and cheese with tiny broccoli florets cause he was craving it that bad !! OMG you are sharing moments here , give it a couple of months , you know a lot more about each other , that you wouldn't if this was not the era of "facebook" friends.This friendship is completely based on true friendship and being loyal to each other ...naaahhhh....it is based on mutual likes or as I like to call it "approval" and we crave it like crazy. 104 persons approved my photo in hawaii or 25 people liked the meme I shared from a random page.This shit is powerful , no less addicting than a drug. Right now, we are approval driven , admit it or not. The problem looks silly on the surface but it is growing it's root so deep , someday , we might need to re-think our whole way of internet socializing. I am talking about our younger generation , our future . I am in my mid 20-s , and I think I learned well how to process any given situation in a very adult way , even I struggle time to time , to let go , to minimize the power of approval on me. If I want to say it nakedly , for all of us , we just don't want to be happy , we want to be happier than all.We upload our photos only when it is perfect , we take 100 photos , upload one , the one that looks perfect to us , the one that people will "approve" the most .We don't upload the photo where our makeup is melting like butter or the crappy chinese take out we had the other day. Yes, you do it too . Keep saying no to me as much as you desire . But we all do it(not because NIKE told us to , we would do it anyways) . I don't know where we are heading with this , but not somewhere "perfect" . People still had friends , also a life in pre-facebook era , may be not a perfect one , but for sure with less deep down under frustration centered around other's approval. I have seen people deleting photos, posts because those were not enough "approved" , suddenly those photos lose the importance to them. Recently there was three studies conducted by Stanford University , one I particularly remember was the one where the researchers found that their subjects consistently underestimated how dejected others were–and likely wound up feeling more dejected as a result. Go figure !!
Thankfully, I don't have kids yet ,before I have them here, I have to figure out a way to protect them from the unfortunate addicting satisfaction from being approved by all .Right now I have none. Hmmmm, I think inventing a time machine would be easier!!!
Approve me please.
Just in case , you are wondering , who that more famous and controversial person than me whom I quoted , He is ... drum roll please , President Bill Clinton. Told you he was controversial !!
