How can I be humble on digital media? This is one of the pressing questions I ponder upon lately. How do you practice being humble in your daily life as well as on social media as there is a fine line between the two?
Humbleness is to be low-key, not boasting one’s achievements or showing pride and mindful of not hurting anyone’s emotion. In general, respecting everyone regardless of their differences. Now, this is the exact opposite of what most do on digital platforms these days. Many even think the sole purpose of social media is to boost one’s achievements or experiences however small they may be.
Millions of us are hooked to some form of social media to share our personal life and to keep a tab on other's life.
It is very common to use various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and even LinkedIn to share happenings of your personal life to portray that you are well and happy. We brag or humbler to share pictures, experiences of your recent travel, new recipes, new clothes and even haircut. There is nothing wrong with this, everyone wants to spread the joy they have experienced but the larger concerns are to what degree we should do it.
I have a conflict of thoughts as to which is more important being humble in your behavior, lifestyle, or bragging about your little achievements and experiences over digital channels, to portray an image of being successful. We are in the deep sea in the world of digital transformation, it’s a boon to connect to people, help solve problems and to ease manual labor. However, it’s a bane if we are addicted to it more than required. Are we getting so habituated to this virtual life, which takes us away from reality?
It is hard to stay out of it, even harder to stay on it to constantly show your progress and if you are not on it, then do you even exists?
Humbleness is an art which I believe we all must practice throughout our life. You cannot be humble one day and brag about yourself on another. However, the latter one is easy and brings instant joy. So how do we be on social media to connect with friends across continents yet be humble? How do we ensure that our happy moments like travel, celebrations and little joys of life are not taken as boasting of extravagance or perceived happy life? How do we manage to stay ground despite our little happiness or successful streak go to our heads? On the other end, how do we safeguard ourselves from being pessimistic by looking at others' achievements and rather take it as inspiration to improve ourselves? It’s a tight spot to be in for the current and more so for future generations.
Understandably, it’s hard to isolate ourselves from the physical world without interacting with fellow others, we learned that during the pandemic. We are made to mingle and share our happiness and sorrow with others in our lifetime. Blessed are the people, who don’t have to worry about their digital image. Those who are not on social media or use it seldom also have joyous moments in their life. There are still millions not glued to their phone to find happiness, they too live an active life.
Am confident each one of us has and will achieve great heights in our life irrespective of the situations we face and without bragging about it on social media.
Important thing is to remember that we are not the only ones to be successful, there are millions out there attaining great heights in their chosen field.
I gather that the most successful and established people are naturally humble and at times even doubt their abilities. Maybe failures and rejections taught them that it takes a lot of effort to not only achieve success but to maintain it for long. I believe there is a fine line between assertiveness and the depiction of arrogance. Situations will arise in our life when we will swing on either side of this line, but a good strength of character will know how to sail the tide.
So how do you practice digital humbleness in this age and time when instant recognition is easy and short-lived? There are numerous ways to be humble like reading old cultural text, listing to spiritual talks, helping the needy but how do we practice all this when we are distracted every five minutes with the beep of the phone or TV. It’s a herculean task to accept the bad, to make an attempt to let it go and to relearn things. The very thought that we want to improve and be humble is rare these days.
One of the quick ways, I learned to check my level of arrogance to try solving a difficult problem in my work area or outside. A failed attempt is the bitter medicine we need to keep ourselves in check. Another way learned from my travel experiences, is to talk to strangers and discover how people think, live their day-to-day life and overcome challenges, this opens a whole new perspective. Each stranger I met taught me something new and left a lasting impression.
Slowly we will be in a world where there will be more machines than humans, governed by artificial intelligence.
Qualities like humbleness, respect, empathy, compassion and more would be dear and important than anything.
However hard we try artificial intelligence and robots will not be able to replicate these qualities. And hence it is vital that we revise these old values which differentiate us from other species. Present them in new ways for the future generations to understand and integrate in their life. I strongly believe if we improve the real person eventually, our digital image would improve, depicting our core values of respect, empathy and compassion but do we want to do it?
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