aspirational people in your life
Something that always confused me is how people love following the content of people online who have so much better things and a better life, but hate to see it in real life in their direct environment people they know.
They’ll be in love with influencers who can afford all these products, who get up at 6am, present the perfect morning routine and seemingly always have time to cook fresh and work out, who have the perfect bodies.
There was a time in my life when I thought I had to be perfect to be loved. To look like I have it all together to project to everyone “look, I’m not a burden, I’ll only add to your life”. I let people in about my hyperorganized thoughts, my perfectionist goals, my daily life, my activities. I was pretty close to what they all love to see online.
What did it get me? I think it made me unrelatable at best, people didn’t wanna admit weakness in front of me and it got me resentment and jealousy at worst. I learned that many people prefer surrounding themselves with what they perceive as equals or lessers so they don’t feel like they’re losing the competition they created in their head. They might love to see inspirational grwm videos of their favorite online girlie, but they hate people in their direct environment who live like this.
It’s also like that with advice. People cheer on people giving tough love or hard advice online; just look at those alpha bros or the tone that a lot of WizardLiz videos have. People create their own AI coaches with the instructions to point out hypocrisies, weaknesses, excuses and more to identify and work on. But do that in real life between friends, even when they come to you for advice, then you’re the asshole and you get resented for telling them what they should hear. I don’t mean brutal honesty, that’s just being an asshole; but gently pointing out errors in thinking or floating the option that they could be the issue, or suggesting what they could do. Most problems people came to me with were entirely self-inflicted, but they didn’t wanna hear advice that would require them to change, they wanted the magic pill to fix it without doing anything and I couldn’t give it to them and was direct. That was the crime.
I don’t know how to feel about the fact that people love in fake influencers and AI what they hate in me. You’re surrounding yourself with a fake life coach and perfect little pinterest moodboards of someone else’s life when you can’t stand to see it in someone else in your life?
I always love to befriend and learn from people I perceive as better than me and I’m always looking to uplift people and let us grow together. Well, outsource it then to bots and people who don’t care about you because you don’t exist to them; just know they won’t show up with soup when you’re sick, won’t hug you when you cry, etc.