I go frantic about any plan or trip me and my husband would make because the first thing that pops up in my mind before the planning even begin to take a trip to the north is how to make it “media-perfect”.

I have given my social media materialism this name as it truly navigates my personal thought process about doing literally anything to make it a perfection as per the social media standards. It makes my world whirl in a cluster of seconds as multiple tabs start popping in my mind to plan it strictly aesthetically appealing. 

To begin with, the precisions that play in my mind are:

-the kind of place we are going 

-does the place matches my current vibe?

-do I have the essential outfits required to match them with the location’s vibe?

-do I have the required time to plan according to my needs/wants?

-do I have the budget to make it in the given time?

Being a total girly girl, the very fundamental of me going on a simple vacation or doing even a regular thing is how I have to have a proper outfit to honor the occasion in my own way. 

It has become a ritual now to make things or activities look aesthetically pleasing even if it becomes a pain in your ass to plan such with such detailed elaboration. I personally enjoy it or not it should look “media-perfect”.  The person going with me may feel annoyed to their last bone, but it should be “media-perfect”. 

After a few such so-called “fun vacations”, I discovered when a rustle of self-realization wrecked the nerves of my little heart, knowing how it affects not just my innovation of amusement but that of the people around me as well. It was a bubble-breaker moment for me to comprehend how it was ruling and hampering my own beliefs of liberation. It was then that I got the ultimate sense about how the “beauteous” activities were brutally killing my OG idea of fun and true enjoyment, how badly I was trapped under the myth of flawless and captivating leisure. 

Social media has falsely ideated everything we do into a compulsorily “aesthetic” scenery. Our lives have now compacted into mere bluffs of the IG grids which we believe to define our true essence of “enjoyment” and “pleasure”. I had myself chained my idea of amusement to make it more appealing in appearance than the feelings. 

But I am trying. Trying to personally grasp the needs of being in the hour more important than capturing the hour. I now try to hold my husband’s hand not for the sake of media but out of “love”. I am gradually learning to cherish the flavor of cuisines through my taste buds instead through my camera lenses. I am improvising on feeling the true joy of dancing in the rain than smiling merely to look happier in the camera. I am learning to enjoy first rather than capture first. 

I am learning to focus on being a normal girl out on the tour instead of being a media-perfect princess in her fairytale land playing the la-la in the laps of Mother Nature. 

I am learning to be defined by the experiences I share by my words rather than the pictures playing my side of narration. I am learning to be noble inside-out instead of fitting into the grids beautifully. 

Empower the social media visibility more through narration than just focussing on “looking happy”.