Every single day people turn their personal struggles into public performance online. They broadcast their insecurities into a void of strangers, hoping for a “digital hug” in the form of a heart icon or a supportive comment.
It’s like no one wants to work on building confidence themselves anymore.
While social media offers a platform for expression, it has also become a “dopamine bar” where people use up potential like tokens traded for cheap shots of validation, and the temporary high of having someone comiserate with you, without judgement.
But the problem is everyone gets hooked on that cheap dopamine and keeps running back to their feeds. People fill their profiles with their fabricated person and ideas about creative projects that “someone should make.”
That Someone Is You, Buddy
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped into replies and asked questions to see if the OP could build on their idea, only to get the response “I don’t know.”
Social media is just full of hundreds of thousands of people clamoring for attention, and not 3 threads of coherent, foundational thought to back their own ideas.
Everyone is opinionated, and has some complaint to lodge. Nobody has any imagination or follow through. It’s a ton of rowdy, miserable fucking people patting each other on the back and labling anyone who clocks their bullshit with whatever black mark insult is available. One that everyone tries desperately to avoid is “ableist.” Also, you never want to be accused of not being an ally. It doens’t matter to whom. You just don’t want be accused of it.
If you want to fit in and get along in the social media circus you have to agree with people who pity themselves, and you definitely should never ever advocate for direct action. Otherwise people who don’t have spines, courage, initiative, or foresight will project all of their failings onto you and accuse of running a completely unrelated-to-anything scam.
The gag is that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. If you want your painful, pitiful, hard-luck, struggle-city life to change, THEN YOU HAVE TO CHANGE IT. YOU.
That means you have to stop looking for permission to be pathetic, from people who don’t know you, and truly will forget about you if your profile goes offline.
You have to get committed to your real life.
The Dopamine Trap: Why People Post Their Pain
Social media gives everyone a tiny stage. It is intoxicating to receive attention, but there is a dark side to this connectivity. Many have become dependent on the “dopamine shots” of external validation.
When you post about how hard life is, you aren’t usually looking for solutions. You’re looking for a someone to give you digital pat on the back. You want to be told you’re going to be okay and that someone, anyone, anywhere hopes your day gets better. Boohoohooo.
Kim, there’s people that are dying.
The hard truth is that everyone is fighting a similar battle. Your personal “struggle Olympics” isn’t unique, and fixating on the pain is exactly what keeps you stuck from finding and implementing solutions that are already available.
You Are Both the Cage and the Key
One of the greatest illusions of the internet is that “posting is doing something.” People often mistake digital noise for activism and status updates for progress. You stay trapped in a cycle of moping and scrolling because that’s easier than doing the actual mental labor of problem-solving and expanding yourself.
You are the bird, you are the cage, and you are the open door.
The only thing keeping you from your goals – the book you want to write, the art you want to create, the business you want to start – is the resistance that you create for yourself. You tell yourself it will be hard. You tell yourself you don’t know where to begin, or you can’t do it. You tell yourself all types of lies to keep yourself small. And then you log on and ask people to be nice to you?
How to Start Building Confidence Internally
Truly building confidence isn’t relying on notification icon. It’s a process you go through you’re alone, by yourself, when no one is watching and no one is “double-tapping” your progress. Twelve thousand followers don’t mean anything unless you’re actually doing something to reach people and improve their lives. Otherwise you’re just collecting faces to feed your codependency.
If you want to break that cycle, and start doing something meaningful with your time consider these shifts:
- Stop Seeking Permission: You do not need a thousand likes to validate an idea. If it is important, start it today.
- Identify the “Dopamine Bar”: Notice when you are posting just to feel “seen.” Ask: Is this helping me grow, or am I just begging for a morsel of attention?
- Use the Information Superhighway for Solutions: Instead of fixating on the “points that hurt,” use the internet to find exercises, skills, and tools that alleviate pressure.
- Value Effort Over Praise: Focus on the work itself. The change you want to see in the world starts when you trust your own ability to do hard things without needing an audience.
The Path Forward: Action Over Validation
People have lost trust in institutions, and they keep bumping into one another online looking for some certainty, some reliability, and some sense of belonging. But posting IS NOT ACTIVISM, AND IT IS NOT ORGANIZING. And it will never make considerable change in the ways you’d like to believe that it does.
Real magic happens when you release yourself from the need to be liked.
When you stop holding out a figurative cap, begging strangers for just one morself of approval, then you’re finally free to take action.
The story of your life only changes when you change. Put effort behind your passions when no one is looking. Work when no one is clicking your links. Trust yourself enough to be your own hero. Trust your own ideas, and your own ability to do hard things – without someone else giving you permission, or giving you praise.
Confidence and Freedom are not things anyone else can ever give you. Those battles are won inside your mind, and when you look at your own bullshit and get tired of it, you’re on you’re way to winning.
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