discovering why people want to feel important and trying to learn what's really important

In today's society more so than ever before, we try hard to define ourselves. I believe that it has something to with the overwhelming nature of the world now. Information moves so quickly, and people are able to connect in ways never thought possible. In an attempt to try and stand out in this now universal crowd, we wear every emotions on our sleeves, or better yet, our cyber-sleeves. This is so apparent when we see people updating their facebook statuses every chance they get. One question is whether it's really nessecary to update your status to let the whole facebook community know that you are going to grab some orange juice from whole foods or that you are taking a day trip to the beach. The other question is who really as they are grabbing their keys to run to the store, stops and thinks "oh wow, i need to let people know that i'm doing this."

In my opinion, this constant hunger to be noticed is an off shoot of reality television. Reality tv has led everyone to believe that they deserve their own tv show. With this mentality that we are all important(which we are), we lead ourselves to think that people care that we needed some groceries.

In my own personal attempt to counteract this habit, last week I deleted my facebook and myspace accounts. As groundbreaking as it sounds, we forget that there was life before these websites. I decided that I needed to stop wearing my emotions on my e-sleeve( yes that sounds better) and start living life in REAL LIFE.

But something happened. I realized that I too was a part of it. I missed letting people know what I was doing. Sadly I started to feel unimportant. I didn't like that I couldn't let people know that I had changed my mind about the presidential election.

So I reopened my accounts, but I'm learning to moderate my usage. And I'm learning to start wearing my thoughts on my real sleeve, or cardigan, courtesy of my new obama button.