The Diaspora... Misery
People’s lives may not have been easier in the past than they are today, but they were, in some respects, calmer. A person knew the news of his home, his work, his relatives, and a limited circle of friends. He did not know where hundreds of people had traveled that summer, what his colleague had bought, which restaurant his friend had dined at, or what a stranger’s house looked like. Comparisons were limited, and therefore desires were likely limited as well. Today, however, we do not merely live our own lives; we watch the lives of others all day long. We wake up in the morning, and before we even leave our beds, we have entered dozens of homes, traveled with others, and seen a new car, a promotion, a wedding, a newborn, a restaurant, a perfect body, a luxury hotel, and a successful venture. Then we put the phone aside and look at our own ordinary lives, which seem less beautiful than they did just minutes earlier. Not because our lives have changed, but because the standard of comparison has changed. This is where the danger of modern distractions lies: they do not merely steal our time; they may also steal our contentment.
Social media is a clear example. The problem is not its use; it has brought the distant close and opened doors to knowledge, work, and communication. But the problem begins when it transforms from a window through which we observe the world into a mirror in front of which we measure our lives. Worse still, we compare our entire lives with selectively curated moments from the lives of others. We see the journey, but not the setbacks. We see success, but not the years of failure. We see the beautiful family photo, but not what lies behind closed doors. We see the prestigious position, but not the anxiety that may accompany it. With repetition, people begin to feel that everyone else is living better than they are, that they are falling behind, and that what they have is no longer enough. Even things they once longed for, which they may now possess, fail to bring them joy; because minutes later, their phone tells them that someone else owns something better. Thus, desires multiply while contentment diminishes.
Yet distractions are not limited to social media. We live amid ceaseless notifications, endless news, and short clips that whisk us from laughter to sadness to anger within minutes. It has become difficult to sit without a screen, to walk without headphones, or to wait without a phone. It seems we have come to fear being alone with our own thoughts. Perhaps happiness does not always require adding something new to our lives, but rather removing some of the noise. See less, so that you compare less. Know less about the lives of others, so that you pay more attention to your own life. Leave yourself space to feel what you have, before the world tells you what you lack.
The lives of previous generations were not free from worries, and we should not romanticize the past beyond what it deserves. But they possessed something that has become rare today: the ability to live one’s own life, without constantly watching the life one could have lived. M. Hussein Mohammed Arty
