What if competition is misdirected self-worth?
Questioning the behemoth of internalised patriarchal programming and social media
Do you ever wonder why competition is so deeply embedded in our global-cultural psyche?
While it’s popular for some to claim they were ‘born competitive’, I’m beginning to wonder whether this is yet another unconsciously-ingrained patriarchal programming, wrongly attributed to our innate sense of self-belief.
Social media is a prime example of this in microcosmic form.
I have taken almost an entire month off Instagram already, without even realising. Sure, I checked in periodically via web browser with my friends’ accounts, and I couldn’t stop Meta sharing a few of my personal-page Facebook posts there.
But my days of automatically opening the app, browsing for as long as it took to become aware how nauseous I felt, creating a totally aligned post/ reel/ video which then reached precisely 10 accounts, and feeling utterly worthless as a result - has been alleviated.
Being away from incessant SM browsing and posting has brought me back to the root of why I want to share at all - the foundational belief in what I have to offer and the values supporting this. In other words, my innate self-belief and ‘worth’.
The sad thing is, I’m now beginning to feel the same way about Substack.
Once it felt like a safe and exciting haven promoting real, long form content away from the insane merry-go-round of social media. Now it feels like yet another treadmill to do all the things in order to get seen / read/ liked / shared.
And in case it wasn’t obvious already, I am the least competitive person you could meet. Competition immediately turns me all the way OFF, in fact. If we’re playing a game and you go super-competitive / mercenary on me, I will quite peacefully give up and suggest we do something else entirely.
Something more connecting. Nourishing. Love-fuelled.
A friend of mine just told me she’s been coerced to come back to posting intentionally for her business on Instagram, because she “can’t afford not to”, by a business mentor. This is definitely the pervading belief, and one that feels truer the more time one actually spends on the platform. Always chasing the next connection, the next comment and like and share. Always chasing more.
And yet always, perpetually, feeling like a failure. Like you can never feed the beast enough, and you’re a loser as a result.
I know great business owners who have left Instagram. Either periodically (for months at a time) or permanently. I also know really successful businesses who don’t actually have social accounts at all.
So it really begs the big question, why are we really pouring so much competitive energy into socials?
Social media, of course, has another insidious trick up its sleeve. Because we are inherently social beings, we naturally feel better being social - or at least feeling like we are being social.
I don’t know about you, but I can spend hours on social media - interacting with friends, peers and new accounts, not just with likes but comments and even back-and-forth interactions - and still come away feeling lonelier and less connected than ever. I’m pretty sure this is a commonplace phenomenon.
Strangely, I don’t remember feeling this way when it was blog parties and forums taking central stage.
Something has shifted in our psyche so radically through social media that - I believe - makes us now equate our self worth with our determination to ‘succeed’ on it.
Our innate drive to prove our own, entirely natural self-belief, has driven us to work faster and harder at externally-validated games in the promise of achieving “Results. Fast!”
Choose your game: social media. The career “ladder”. The pursuit of the perfect nuclear family. 6-figure incomes (or simply affording shelter, food and water). Being surrounded by all the latest fashions and technology. Having the most “friends”. Fitting into current societal expectations of beauty.
I think if we are each completely honest with ourselves, there isn’t one of us not playing (or attempting to play/ keep up with) all these games at some level.
And yet, aren’t they all the Biggest Distraction from our true needs, and our true nature?
Can we somehow get ourselves back to this? Back to the core of it all -
Something more connecting. Nourishing. Love-fuelled?
That is the only game I’m interested in playing.
If you use social media in a conscious and highly intentional way (and it works for you!), let us know how in the comments 😍
I'm so with you. I've opted out of Notes here on Substack almost entirely because it feels too close to the classic social media traps and tropes to me, and brings out that loneliness and not enough feeling in me that other social media evoked until I stripped waaaay back to just very occasional and boundaried Insta use. I prefer longer form writing for the opportunity to interact more in depth, the surfacey experience of so much of SM leaves me feeling icky.