It's Not Just You

No one can pay attention

I’m going to start every Friday Feels with a vulnerable moment.

So, yea. Here it is.

Okay.

No, yea. I can do this.

Most of my anxiety stems from this fear that I’m not doing enough. And everyone knows.

Everyone must think I’m a shut-in. Or a mooch. Or too lazy.

That there is something that I am not doing, an action I am not taking, that makes me miss out on a better life.

For a long time I couldn’t place why I had this looming dread as I strived for achievement. I didn’t understand why I would wake up some days convinced my friends wanted nothing to do with me because I wasn’t doing enough. Why I was just dog-paddling in my attempts at expanding my career and drowning in this feeling of trying to drain the ocean using a cup.

My skills were there. My healing was there. I meditated every morning. Did yoga. Worked out. I was developing a better relationship with myself. But, still, this damn feeling of not enoughness wouldn’t go away.

Until I realized.

It was my attention. Or maybe intention.

Intentional attention.

---

Maybe I’m getting older; maybe it’s the crushing weight of the constant information overload and instant gratification.

I used to be able to write for hours and now I’m lucky if I even make it through this sentence before I check my phone.

…yes I did check it.

There’s been this shift, in most of us I believe, from being able to sit down somewhere and experience life, to now feeling a constant fear of not creating enough while also not consuming enough. A consistent push-pull of receiving information and putting out information.

It really hit me when I was making reels.

I wanted to incorporate more humor into my creations, so I found a few soundbites I enjoyed and made some. And then immediately I got hooked. I made about 15 and a part of me wanted to post them all right then and there.

So every day I posted my funny reel and every day I started getting sucked into the meme vortex, scouring for my next idea. And I felt this ping of anxiety creep up as I worried if I would get my reel out in time to catch the trend timing for the sound.

That feeling of not enoughness again.

So I stopped and asked myself, “do I even want to be a figure on the internet?”

The answer is a clear no.

I would hate to spend my time constantly online, trying to get people to notice me.

I want to be out there, living, experiencing.

Don’t get me wrong I love social media. I just don’t think its business models are helpful right now.

That’s why I love creating newsletters. It’s my community. It’s a place that people can come and focus on one thing and build connections through a specific funnel. You know what you signed up for.