To anyone who's struggling with this online life, I want you to picture it like school.

You have the people you're close with and keep up with daily, you chat with all the time and make plans to hang out.

Then, you'll have the people you know but aren't too close with. You may share a table and you'll probably give them a smile in the halls but you won't go out of your way to get closer with them. You're friendly, sure, but neither really minds if that friendship goes deeper.

Then there's the people you stray away from.

You don't just blab out your personal stuff to new people you meet or even friends if that trust doesn't go deeper.

And there's always going to be someone you meet that may cause some drama. Sometimes it's easier to tell than others, but most of the time you can form that connection before having it break.

It's easy to see this place as a separate life, but if anything (at least for me) that makes it so much worse.

Now that I'm slowly growing and becoming a better well rounded person, I've realized that for me it's better to see this place as just another school day.

I have my good friends like Juju that I always hang out with. I have my friends in classes that I joke around with, have some fun laughs, but ultimately don't grow from there. I'm able to hold up a conversation with new people, I'm able to be kind and bubbly, but it doesn't have to go further from a simple hello and maybe a compliment to start out a short conversation.

These people on here are simply that. People.

I feel like we often get it warped in our heads and especially with the social construct of popularity contests being right there on the screen, it can get bad fast.

It's like you're trying to figure out the right outfit to wear to fit in, to try and be popular, to try and catch attention when in reality...

all you need is to be happy with who you are.

It's easy to fall into that contest, it's easy to think we have to battle it out in order to catch some attention, it's easy to attach your happiness to the amount of 'friends' you have.

But whether that person stopped by to hold a nice conversation, say a simple hello, or even just smile silently before leaving ...it's just another day at your school.

And as long as you got your close friends and you're happy with yourself and your hobbies, then that's all you need.

You're wearing that style clothing because you like it,

You're listening to that type of music because you enjoy it,

And you're talking about those video games or shows because you love it!

It doesn't matter about 'attention' or in this case views; it just matters that you're happy with the way you are.

The best way to reach your goal is by doing it the way you love. Sure there may be a faster way by doing stuff you don't enjoy (or writing about ships you may not like), but is that truly what you want people to know you for?

Social media can be draining, but seeing it in this setting helps me a lot. I know a lot of newcomers who need to take a break and log off but don't because, well it can be a hard thing to do.

Heck I didn't take a break in over a year and a half since I joined until my friend literally bribed me into taking a month off.

I never realized how many stories I wrote just to get traction and maybe get more people to follow me (at the beginning, you can see that in a lot of my early stories. Most are unpublished now but some are still up-).

I was always chasing that goal of 100 followers and after I reached it I seemed...empty. I keep running towards that next milestone and when I get there it's more like "alright well...onto the next one" and it never feels like that same excitement I experienced when I first got it.

If anything, I was scrolling through rankings, going to google and searching up Boat Boys stories or Xornoth fanfic and seeing which Wattpad story popped up first, I was constantly reloading Wattpad after updating a story desperate for someone to leave comments.

But this kinda reset my point of view and got me started back to the beginning which I'm very thankful for.

As much as I always remind people that we joined just to share our stuff and if someone liked it cool, but that's not the reason we were writing in the first place, I am someone who forgets that the most and can tie my self worth to those numbers.

It's gotten a lot better especially since I figured out the ways to log off and how to handle that first week of being offline, but picturing the viewers just like peers at my school takes so much weight off my shoulders.

~

I may never know that that person who liked my photography project, but they shared a nice smile with me in the halls.

I may never get closer to that person who randomly says hi to me and we share a short conversation, but I appreciated our time together.

I may not hear that person who was trying to stop me in the halls and compliment my outfits, but I'm happy nonetheless.

I may have that friend who I always partner up with for projects and we're able to rely on each other.

I may have that close friend who I always chat with at lunch and during breaks.

And I may have those people who I see but don't talk with anymore after drama.

But I'm able to keep walking through the day and keep my head high.

And at the end of the day,

all that matters is that we're able to keep fighting and learn from our mistakes.

~
KEY:

Person I shared a smile with: Ghost reader

Short convo: Person who leaves one comment and we have a small talk

Person I don't hear: People who leave me a bunch of comments and I never read them

Person I do projects with: People who I collab with and message every now and then

People I've had drama with: People who I've blocked and muted