Stop Taking Your Fears to Social Media

Early in a child's life, they will ask the world if they are doing OK. Do they deserve goodwill and sympathy?

When a parent responds and is generous, warm, sympathetic and understanding of life's challenges, the child will develop an easy conscience and think of themselves as valuable. They won't continuously wonder if they have the right to exist.

But the more punitive parent, whose approval is uncertain, will raise a child that is uncertain and in fear of being called arrogant.

Very few adults will still wonder what their parents think of them. Instead, they often take the question elsewhere, such as a harsh figure of authority: media and social media. 

In this place that rewards sadism and malice, the self-doubting person will now direct their fears of unworthiness and desire for reassurance and ask, "Do I deserve to exist? Am I OK?" However, social media never gives a reliable yes. 

If we want to find out who we are, we will have to go back to the baby and quiet the alarmed enquiries with ample doses of soothing and kindness.