are you changing for other people?

via

Last night, I was home alone because my husband was at work. This happens more often than not during the week. So I frequently need to find ways to entertain myself. What I WANTED to do yesterday was go to the library and pick up my books that were on hold. However, it was the 24th of July, which here in Utah is a big holiday called Pioneer Day where there is much laughter and rejoicing because of our pioneer ancestors, and no one goes to work. Therefore, the library was closed. So what I ended up doing, was finding a random show on Hulu to watch. It was a new dating show. I kind of have an unhealthy but mostly sarcastic love of the Bachelor/Bachelorette, so I thought hey, why not try something new but along the same lines? It was actually pretty interesting, the way they had it all set up. And I mean interesting in the stupid, pathetic way dating shows have of throwing desperate people together and calling it television. (Which I have a lot of thoughts on that as well! For a later time.)

The thing is, one of the people on the show said something that really rang true to me. He said, "99% of people let the quality of their lives be determined by the thoughts of strangers."

I mean, I am one of them. I bet you reading this right now are one of them. How many of us let at least a fraction of our happiness be determined by how many "likes" we get? On Instagram, Twitter, Facebook... I mean, I'm guilty of thinking about it a little too much probably. I don't even post on twitter that often because I'm afraid no one cares what I have to say. And yet, I feel like I can post full paragraphs of my own thoughts here on this blog and I hope that people read read read and never stop reading! We try to get more likes on Instagram by making our life look perfect through pictures. When we go places, we think, I should take a picture of this because I bet that's what other people would like to see! We write statuses that we think people will comment on so that we can see the little red notification pop up on the corner of our screen.

Some of this scares me. But at the same time... I still really like all these ways that we have to communicate and share with other people. I wonder how much of this is actually bad? And how much of it can be good for us? Changing for strangers suggests a level of insecurity that might not be there if we didn't have these outlets in our lives.

So I wonder, how can I still enjoy all of these sharing outlets without feeling the need for "likes"?

What do you guys think? Is social media making us insecure to the point of changing our lives to what we think others will like?

p.s. i would love a good rainstorm right now. pouring rain with the windows open sounds heavenly!