Exposed
Lately I’ve felt constantly humiliated for simply existing. Nearly every time I share a piece of writing, tweet a thought, post a YouTube video, or even a photo on Instagram I shudder with a sense of shame. I don’t feel shameful in the way of immorality, but rather a feeling of cringe comes over me. I get the same feeling when I have a crush on someone or have to explain some other kind of emotion. Why is being alive so mortifying?
I wonder: Am I oversharing? Am I coming across coherently? Do I sound redundant? I’m not sure what level of ungodly self-awareness I’ve tapped into, but I’d like to tap out. Despite all this elective discomfort, something inside me says to keep going, to lean into it.
Every day I think about breaking the chains of social media and deactivating my Instagram account, the app I open most often. I think of all the extra time I’d have and the high of blissful ignorance I’d ride from not knowing every time someone announces a pregnancy or gets a promotion.
Writing and sharing my life’s developments on the World Wide Web make me feel like an open wound moving through the planet without a bandaid or gauze—entirely vulnerable, risking infection at every turn. It’s unsettling to know that the stuff I post on the internet will live here forever, even if I “delete” it.
When I pursued a degree in magazine journalism I pictured my name in print, in a glossy column for some prestigious publication. It wasn’t my plan to be a blogger and have to keep up with ever-changing algorithms while clawing at that goal, but here we are. I bite the bullet to build my brand, though a huge part of me wants to escape somewhere off the grid.
We function in an age where we’re dominated by our devices. Documenting every part of our fleeting, insignificant lives is the norm, and even encouraged. For some, it’s a livelihood. It’s a socially-driven and socially-accepted phenomenon, but I still feel awkward engaging in it.
On the flip side, it does feel satisfying to push out my ideas and experiences, compartmentalizing and packaging them neatly. It’s cathartic and I can look back at them and see how I’ve grown. It’s a digital archive that I’ll always have—and for better or worse, so will everyone else who clicks on my content.
To overcome the embarrassment that seems to be embedded in my very existence, I’m making it a point to stay connected to the child in me, the shameless voice of youth we all had once upon a time. That inner kid reminds me that anything’s possible if I have the guts to pursue it. I realize that to accomplish anything worthwhile in life takes grit, perseverance, and humility. So here I am emotionally stripping, revealing the depths of my thoughts and taking you along for the ride. I’m taking a gamble, betting that the long-term rewards will far outweigh the short-term discomfort. This is me, fully exposed.
