Written by Idayat Jinadu
When I was in primary school, I wanted to be a lawyer. I saw lawyers in Yoruba films I watched with my parents, and I wanted to be one. I imagined myself saying, “Objection, my Lord!” in courtrooms and winning cases. I lived for that dream. Then somewhere it vanished. I can’t figure out how, but I guess I realised I stuttered, and I thought a person who stuttered couldn’t be a lawyer.
Later, when I was a little older, I decided I would be a scientist, like Neil Armstrong, who landed on the moon. This dream sprouted in me after my primary five teacher told us about the moon landing. I imagined it must be an exhilarating experience to land on the moon. I also wanted to discover magnets in the ground because my teacher told us in class that’s how magnets are discovered, and then, whenever I walked on the road, I would try to figure out where a magnet could be hiding in the ground. I had the intuition that science meant deep curiosity; I also got the sense from school teachings. So at home, I would spend long minutes looking at the ants that crawled from the tiny holes in our cement floor and in the wood that held the asbestos in the ceiling and wonder what they were made of.
Eventually, I let go of these dreams as well, because I wasn’t good at mathematics and other science subjects, or so I thought. So, I went to art class. Despite the parabulation, I was never nervous about my future because I had confidence that it was bright per the mere fact that I was a child, and throughout my childhood, all I heard from adults was that children were the leaders of tomorrow. So I wasn’t bothered about the future because I was sure the future had already prepared a place for me; all I needed to do was grow up and become successful, like the adults projected.
Then adulthood arrived, and along with it, a crippling sense of misdirection. When they said I was going to make it in life, I never imagined it would take so long, which is interesting because I’m just 25. My frontal lobe just developed, yet I think I haven’t made it in life. This phenomenon of mine is going to lead us to the thesis of this piece.
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We live in the age of social media. Everyone is on a social media platform, where they keep up with life by sharing their experiences, dancing, spreading love, and even expressing hate. We have access to the opinions of so many people on a daily basis and this gives weight to the vision of a global village. In fact, we do live in a global village now. Everyone is connected. When I was a child, I was only aware of my country and town, but now I speak to people on different continents through social media! This is connection, and with connections come opportunities. Access is no longer linear. The meaning of “togetherness” has changed from families and friends in the same neighbourhood enjoying a community to countries aligning over values and needs. Such collaboration is good for human advancement. Civilisation is at its peak and our generation is experiencing it, which means life is significantly and objectively better.
On the other side of the coin, I think the constant exposure we have to other people’s lives via social media is beginning to take a toll on our collective and individual mental well-being. The global availability of and access to social media mean there is always someone to compare yourself to, as there will always be someone who appears to be better at what you do.
In the boomer and perhaps early millennial generations, I imagine life’s direction was an easier path to tread because they were not exposed to the world beyond their immediate environment. They could decide to be a lawyer and work as a lawyer for decades. They were teachers, they were singers, and they were traders. Life was much easier to tread from the perspective of knowing what to do and earn from.
They had the security of limitations, an interesting oxymoron. When you are limited from constantly seeing the opinions and outputs of millions of people on a daily basis, there is less room for comparisons and the resulting mental fatigue. This is especially heightened by the highlight reels of careers that people share online. Hardly anyone shares the difficulties and the hard, steep process, but we are always bombarded with success. I’m not implying that success isn’t important or necessary; I’m just critiquing the way it is shown on social media. Hardly do people mention the fortunate circumstances like luck, wealth, and connection that led to their success. Instead, they come online to tell us they are successful, and those who are also trying to be successful in that lane but with no achievements yet begin to feel small because why could it not be them?
On social media, you see people of your age doing things you only dream of. You begin to think you’ve wasted your life because another person’s life is a benchmark. Nothing is internal anymore; it’s all about the approval of external forces. It’s about how you package yourself and make yourself sellable.
The hustle culture forces us to create personal brands, and I strongly believe this dilutes the line between work and life. It’s like we are all in competition with ourselves to be the first successful one. Even those who do not want that life are sucked into it because they exist on social media and need to make money. So rather than pick a skill, learn it, and implement it in the real world to make money and feel fulfilled, you now have to think of building a personal brand. You now have to think of visibility performance. It becomes less about your ability and more about if you are acknowledged by others. And this is so bad. It’s like a social media contagion and everyone is getting infected. I won’t deny its core and crucial advantage of connection, but I think it’s also important that we discuss how social media robs people of their uniqueness and creativity because most people aren’t doing things the way they like; they are doing things the way the algorithm likes.
I saw a LinkedIn post where a lady said she posted every day on LinkedIn for 6 months to gain visibility. I wonder what that does to a person’s sense of self; does it boost it or diminish it? Do you feel thrilled at first for achieving your goal and becoming rated as the number 1 LinkedIn influencer, but then you wake up one day feeling small because you let an algorithm dictate so much of your life for 6 months? Now that you are visible, are all the problems of your life solved? Are you getting the jobs you want? Or do you keep appealing to the algorithm to keep the visibility?
Or do you feel perfectly happy?
My argument is that a lot of the existential crises we experience are rooted in the exposure we have to people’s lives. What makes it crazier is we only compare ourselves to the highlights; we never know what goes on behind the scenes, but we only want to be like people who we think are living the life that we deserve as well.
In Yoruba, there is a saying: “o le wo ag? alago sare” (you can’t use another person’s time for your race). Social media is the exact opposite of this saying; it encourages using other people’s lives as the standard for our own. I mean, don’t you want to be a freelancer who is earning $2000 in a week? Don’t you want to work at the biggest firm in your industry? Don’t you want your course to sell out and your newsletter subscribed to by thousands? Don’t you want a personal brand people recognise and patronise? Don’t you want to build a start-up and raise millions of dollars? After all, all your friends are doing it and getting recognition from it. That girl you follow on social media who is only 25 years old began her start-up and makes thousands of dollars weekly. What about you? Aren’t you worthy of that life too? Like that, we abandon ourselves and chase the lives of strangers, using their time to measure ours.
So when they told us when we were children that we were going to make it in life, I bet they imagined we would live contained lives. A life where you discover your passion and you work hard at it. You discover your role and you excel. They didn’t know we would grow into the social media era where visibility triumphs skill and talent. You could train hard to be a designer and a person who is not as skilled as you gets the job because they are visible. That creates a gap, doesn’t it? Those that tell you to post everyday for 100 days want you to be disciplined, but they also say it’s for visibility. No matter what you do, you have to think of a personal brand. You have to constantly care about how you will present yourself to people so that they can hire you or patronise you.
Isn’t all this doing something to our collective and individual self-worth?
Look at me; I think I haven’t made it in life because I’m 25-years-old. Isn’t that ridiculous? But what is expected from constantly seeing people my age run million-naira and million-dollar businesses? The constant exposure to people living lives I dream of.
At the same time, I tell myself how crazy all of these things are. If I look into my life, what blessings can I count? The answer is many blessings.
So when it’s midnight and you are doomscrolling on LinkedIn or TikTok and you are wondering what you are made for after seeing countless people displaying their successes, look inward and really see yourself. Remember the circumstances of your life aren’t the same as other people’s. So yes, please work hard and make a name you are proud of for yourself. But don’t be deceived by the contagion. Be inspired by it, but don’t be deceived by it.
About the Author:
Idayat Jinadu is a brand strategist and PhD student working on the culture of waste disposal and its effect on environmental security for her dissertation. She is inspired by impact and wants to create things that matter for people who need them to be free, liberated, and who they truly want to be. She is on the writing track for the 2025 Adventures Creators Programme.
