Small Things...

Memories and Social Media

For me, in life, there are some memories more precious than others. Like riding my cycle with my childhood friends in the rain, riding through the puddles on the road, or teaching myself how to skate, or playing in the rain with my parents during a blackout, or learning to play cricket from my father.

There are somethings in life we should collect and preserve. I don't mean you should collect big or expensive things. I mean you should always have something to remember those happy memories by. We all lead busy lives, with so many things weighing on our minds. And as wonderful as our brain is, it's quite complex too. So, we can't always remember everything. But, we need to remind ourselves of those positive and happy memories once in a while. 

It could be anything.. like a small souvenir from a vacation, or a ticket stub from a play you saw, or anything that reminds you of a good memory. My mom and I collect shells when we go to the beach. And every time I see that jar of shells, I'm immediately transported to the times we spent playing on the beach :D I have some old drawings that a childhood friend and I used to make. I have the very first novel that I read. When I look back on all this, it feels wonderful.

I also have the habit of writing in my journal from a very young age, and when I read those old entries it always brings a smile :)

If you're a 90's kid,(or older), you probably have few photos from the good old days where we used to have a physical copy of the photo in a dusty old photo album. Going through those makes me so happy! But, back then, photography wasn't as common as it is now. So most of us dont have a lot of photos or videos from our growing ages. 

But, in today's day and age, this isn't the case. We all have smartphones and we can take how many ever pictures we want. What was a rarity back then, is a necessity now. We have so many social media platforms. And some people use this in the right way. But some of us, we tend to loose our peace of mind because of social media. We see what other people are posting, and we immediately jump to the conclusion that their life is problem free. And to create an illusion of a perfect life, we also put pictures that show our positive aspects or situations. And a lot of people think that this is a negative effect of using social media. I agree, but only to a certain extent. 

 We could also look at it from another perspective. If you share something that shows a positive aspect of your life, and you choose not to document that negative parts of your life to the public, isn't it a good thing? It means that even if there's something going wrong in your life, you will always have something positive going on. So when you document that, you can use it as a reminder to yourself that there will always be something to celebrate about. And secondly, when we look back at those pictures, we will remember the good times, and happy memories are the best kind. 

The main reason why I wanted to talk about this is that we sometimes perceive social media as a negative influence, but it doesn't have to be that way. If you use it in the right sense, it can help you. We can use it to document our thoughts and our life. And that is very powerful. There was a time when documenting someone's work or preserving a photograph was a challenge. But today, it's become such a regular part of our lives. So blaming social media, or blaming the exposure isn't going to help anyone. Instead, it'll be so much more beneficial if we use it for making our lives better. There are so many people who get inspired by watching a youtube video, or by looking at someone's photos. 

I know that this blogpost is quite different from my others, since I'm expressing an unpopular opinion of sorts by stating that social media could be used in a good way, but if you think about it, everything in life depends on how we use it or how we perceive it. For me, using social media in the right sense, could be a powerful tool for improving your mental health. So the next time you upload a photo, or anything, do it to document your happy memories, don't do it to prove a point to anyone. Also, try to collect and preserve small things that make you happy. Sometimes, a good memory, or recollecting a positive and happy situation is all the therapy you need ;)

/Supritha