Why BeReal Didn’t Fix My Problem

So you’re sitting in your room, which is a total mess. Your finger’s up your nose getting something out, and all of a sudden you get a notification from your phone. Bereal says it’s time to post a pic. What are you going to do? Okay, so maybe you’ve never been in this exact situation, but I doubt you’ve been far off. Look, let’s talk about your options. How many of us have run to another room and done something different to post that picture in time? How many others have frankly ignored the notification and waited until later in the day when they were doing something that they knew would be more interesting? Listen, I get it. Done the same thing. I understand. Even if it’s just for a few friends, you still want the appearance that maybe your life is a little bit better than it really is. Some of you might say, Yeah, take the pic. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. It’s part of the gag. That’s cool. This video isn’t for you. I want to talk to people who, like me, struggle with posting authentically. And because of that, the problems that we face. And I’m going to suggest ways that you and I can fix that.

But you’re going to have to stay tuned. Before we get there, let’s talk about where this started. BeReal launched on the scene not too long ago and honestly got a lot of attention and praise. It felt like this moment where we could finally be ourselves, where we could finally talk about where we were and what we’re really doing without having to filter it, without having to touch it up and take 100 stills. Years, and people latched on, myself included. It also had the promise of only following people that you knew or allowing people to follow you that you knew. But despite all of its promise, it didn’t take as long to fake it. The dilemma is that we want authenticity in our life. We want to be real, and we want others to be real. But I’m not convinced that we even know what that looks like for ourselves.

And then to expect a company to help us to that feels a little unrealistic.

There’s an old adage, You are what you eat.

“You are what you eat from your head down to your feet. Things like meat and eggs and fish you need to build up muscle tissue. Uh-oh.”

Imagine if you only ate candy all the time. If you ate nothing but candy, would 100 % wreck your life, and the negative impacts would just compound over time. Based on candy, your body would not receive the nutrition that it needs to fully function the proper way. Is it that much of a leap to think that what we fill our minds with and ultimately our souls with, they begin to shape and have effect in the same manner? So if our desire really is to have satisfaction, well, it’s no wonder that we’re congregated to social media because it’s in the title of its name. Social. We like to be social with our friends, our family, again, with everyone we meet with, and sometimes complete strangers. We believe that we’re getting a peek into their lives and thereby feeling this weird social relationship. It makes sense why we don’t put down our phones. For many of us, it’s how we stay connected with our friends, our family, our flock, our homies, whatever you want to call them. That access can create unintended consequences as we scroll, as we find realities we currently do not have. A new life, maybe it’s a new location, maybe it’s a new piece of information, a new thing to have, a new moment to replace this one, whatever it may be, it’s this desire to be not here, but I want to be there.

In psychological terms, when we live our life contrary to what we know, we create something called cognitive dissonance, fancy term. Basically, it means when you know or believe something to be true, but live or act contrary to that belief or knowledge. Pretty simple. You know something, you’re not doing it. That’s a gap. That is cognitive dissonance. And you and I have it all the time, probably every day. And the symptoms range from stress, confusion, internal conflict, anxiety, or even flat out denial. People who say raid, shadow Legends is a real game. It’s just, it’s not. What about the cognitive dissonance between what we know to be true, even down to our soul and the things that we do online or even in real life? This picture was taken of members of a camp staff preparing for a sing along in 1944. Add a filter or two, honestly, you get the makings of a new post to send to the group. I mean, they look stoked. Except this was taken in Germany in 1944 at Ashton, the infamous Nazi death camp. This photo, along with others, belonged to Carl Hocker. Carl fled the camp, and not until many years later was he found and tried for his role in the deaths of thousands of people.

When he was taken into custody, what was his response? He said, I had no possibility in any way to influence the events, and I neither wanted them to happen nor took part in them. I didn’t harm anyone, and no one died at Ashwood’s because of me. You can honestly hear the dissonant denial in his own statement, that his very being was at odds with what his soul knew was wrong. So now you might be asking yourself, Okay, how do I become less cognitive dissonant? Because that’s what I want? How about three things you can actually do in no particular order? It goes like this. First, let’s talk about be humble. So much of social media incentivizes capturing every moment for the camera, especially when those moments bring out the big feelings. Yes, I want to see someone’s life gets changed. But lately, so much of the humanitarian content feels like a performance, right? How do you combat the creep of fake feels videos? Well, you don’t. When you allow humility to take part in your life, you aren’t driven to prove someone right or prove someone wrong. Instead, we find a greater appreciation for all of our differences.

Humility can weed out that pride and ego that gets in the way of what we can be, which is a version closer to our authentic self. Like a healthy diet that feeds your body, humility provides your soul with the strength that will replace the need to be seen or recognized. Next, be helpful. Do you want to know one of my favorite helpful people? This is this dude, Mr. Rogers. Even though his show was made for children, it was the accumulated stories of how he treated those children that has revealed who Mr. Rogers was as a person. For example, he would announce when he was feeding his fish because a young blind fan asked if he would do so. The reason why? She just wanted to make sure that they’re being fed and she couldn’t see. Mr. Rogers responded to every letter that his fans would write because he wanted them to know that he cared. But he was also willing to talk to children about difficult subjects like divorce, pain, racism, war, in a way that they could understand. Always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers. So ask yourself, Am I being helpful?

Am I looking for opportunities to help someone that is not myself and not looking for personal benefit or gain? Social media creates these selfish traps where we all be ourselves. But to be helpful means you’re actively thinking of someone other than yourself. And ironically enough, we’ll end up providing satisfaction to our own soul. All right, now we got to be human. Okay, so this last one is a little bit more ambitious. I recognize that, but go with me. Being human means to live a life that appreciates both the good and the bad, the positive and the flaws that we all have, because that’s what we’re all made up of. When you can do that, you are more prone to recognize that each of us is just trying to figure things out and most likely doing the best that we can. Social media is not going away, and frankly, I don’t know that any of us want it to. We can enjoy interactions and engagements, but the trick is we have to be intentional. When we allow too much cognitive dissonance to build up in us no matter where the source is from, it will divide us from what our souls want and need to be.

So be humble in how you interact with others. Be helpful in the way that you engage with those around you. And be human. Allow others to change, to fall, to fail, and to get back up again, and ultimately search the same thing that you and I all want to find fulfillment. This is what it means to be authentic and what will enlarge your soul. So be true, be you. See you in the next episode. Peace.