Remember when you were a kid and you got dared to do something? Everyone would gather around and start chanting “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
It was too tempting to see what would happen. There was a delicious element of risk and the tantalizing prize of popularity… so you did it, and rolled the dice on the consequences.
Would you get in trouble? Would you get hurt? Would your new found fame have any real bearing on your social standing at school?
The scary thing is that those exact same forces are at work in our lives every day, at every age. We still do things we shouldn’t because voices (with nothing to lose themselves) are chanting at us relentlessly.
But you’ll be surprised at the identity of who is shouting the loudest…
. . .
Do It For The ‘Gram
I feel that every time I write about social media I have to issue a disclaimer. I’m not a neutral voice on it. I can’t stand it.
Of course, I think I’m right, but I can just about drag myself to a momentary point of virtual objectivity to see that it must do some good for someone somewhere. Surely. Please?
Ok, maybe not.
Social media is like a permanent virtual school playground. It should be somewhere to take a break, see people you wouldn’t otherwise, make new friends and let off some steam.
But it’s ended up like the worst playground in the world.
Bullies. Dangerous equipment that no-one seems to know if there are rules for or a safety inspector. Gossip. Cliques. Showing off. Desperate pleas for attention and savage put-downs. Oh, and people nicking stuff.
There’s no doubt that social media is a voice shouting at us in our heads. And it’s often not a healthy one. It’s a voice that says :
“Keep up with everyone else. Don’t show weakness. Persuade everyone you’re happy!”
That’s why a parent, who has just spent the whole day shouting at their kids and their partner, surrounded by chaos and mayhem, having spent most of the day in tears, and at their wits end (and actually in need of real support and empathy) will, instead…
- clear a tidy corner of the house
- grab their kids
- stick new toys in their hands
- take 47 photos until there’s one where all the fake smiles all happen at the same time
…then post it on social media with the caption “Family time is the best! Heart emoji. Hug emoji. Heart emoji.”
Social media is a powerful voice, but still not the one that shouts the loudest…
. . .
The Outsiders
In all of our lives we have people that have influence over us. Partners, family, parents, friends, work colleagues, neighbours and loads of others you can think of in your own context.
Often these people hold soft power over us. Our parents are “used to doing things a certain way”. Our families and friends will give us a funny look or comment when we do or say something unexpected.
The overall effect is a low level chorus, repeated constantly in our head like a mantra:
“Stay how we expect you to be, please…”
And if we vary from the well-trodden path, we get judgement.
Reach a little far at work and a colleague or boss will directly or indirectly encourage us to get back in our lanes.
Change our world view, ambitions, goals or life plans and our partner or friends may give us the distinct impression that this wasn’t what they signed up for.
In the end, you get to the point where you exercise all these outsiders’ soft power on your own, without their help and — to be fair to them — without them actually doing or saying anything.
That’s when you find yourself saying (either to yourself or out loud)
“I don’t want to rock the boat so…”
or
“What would people think if…”
Outside voices are powerful, but they are still not the loudest voice in your life…
. . .
Drop The Mic
If you haven’t worked it out already by process of elimination, here’s the big reveal. The person who shouts loudest in your life is, of course…
You yourself.
And the problem is, for a lot of us what we shout at ourselves (and I don’t mean literally out loud, I mean in our heads) is negative, critical and self-defeating.
Skip Prichard, author, CEO and Marketing expert puts it this way:
To some of us this seems obvious, but others refuse to believe. We’d far prefer to shift the blame — on social media, outsiders or anyone else — for the ills in our life.
This “inner voice” is characterized in different ways by different pyschologists. Dr. Steve Peters describes it as our “inner chimp”. Our kids’ school talks to them about their “dinosuar brains”.
However you want to think about it, our inner voice operates on instincts and emotions, not on rational thought processes.
We lash out at others because we’re scared we’ll look silly. We avoid actions that would change our lives for the better because our negative coping mechanisms are so deeply entrenched.
When I’m sad, my brain says “go for a run, then talk about it.” My inner voice says “have a few beers and forget about it.”
But here’s the good news. You can’t change social media. You can’t control outsiders or what they think and do.
You can change yourself though. It’s hard, but it’s possible.
And look it at this way — now you recognise the power of your inner voice, if you can just move the needle, even a tiny amount, on what it shouts at you, then you can see huge improvements in your life.
I often write about a poster I saw in my mid-twenties that landed so hard with me that I think about it at least every week, if not every day. It simply read:
“If you don’t like your life, you can change it.”
Perhaps we should all re-route the wires of our inner microphones, so that what comes out of the speakers is that phrase, repeated over and over, on a loop.
. . .
Final Thoughts
We like to think we are in control of our own lives. And here’s the good news — we are. But (and it’s a really big one) the voice that shouts loudest at us, and has the biggest influence, is our own inner voice.
And here’s the bad news — our inner voice hangs out with the bad kids in the worst playground in the world that is social media, and it’s already absorbed and plays back the negative soft power of outsiders.
But at the end of the day, it is still our voice. So we can change it. And even a small shift in tone and content can have a big positive influence.
—
This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
 |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Pexels
