5 Irrelevant Things We Need to Stop Making So Relevant
Most of our lives are inherently busy enough, yet we seem to love infusing them with even more thoughts and concerns that very easily could have little or no impact on us at all.
While some of it we undoubtedly do for pleasure, such as the amount of time we spend following a favourite sports team or talking about the latest episode of Game of Thrones, there are certain quite naturally irrelevant things out there that we, for some reason, seem to love making a relevant part of our lives.
It's not to say that these things hold no relevance at all, it's just that they most certainly do not hold a level of relevance in OUR lives that matches the amount of time and energy many of us can regularly give to them.
In hopes of helping you alleviate some unnecessary stress and overthought from your life, I've put together a quick list of 5 irrelevant things that we need to stop making so relevant in both video and written form.
1. CELEBRITIES
This one should be quite self-explanatory, but just incase you need me to lay it out for you: believe it or not, what happens to your favourite celebrity has absolutely nothing to do with you. What they are doing, where they are doing it, and who they are doing it with all has no relevance on your life, yet so many of us follow their lives more religiously than we do our own.
Remind yourself that they are ordinary human beings like us that have simply managed to excel in a career that we as a collective, for some reason, seem to admire and put on a pedestal more than others. Cut back on the amount of time you spend reading tabloids and invest it in the people that are an active part of your daily life -yourself included.
2. BEING RIGHT
We all love being right. And while receiving credit for that accomplishment can be a wonderful feeling, is it really so important that it's worth creating arguments and losing sleep over?
I'm not suggesting that we all become pushovers, but I am suggesting that we stop being so credit-obsessed and defensive when things don't go our way.
While we've all undoubtedly been right a countless number of times, we've also all been wrong plenty of times as well, but I don't see us fighting to receive attention for those instances. Stop making the need to be right about the little things so important and instead focus on supporting the greater collective causes that have the power to change the world.
3. OUR ONLINE PERSONA
When MSN Messenger first introduced profile pictures, I'll never forget the amount of time I spent taking and retaking pictures with my pixelated webcam looking for the perfect shot. The end result? Hilarious. (Refer to picture)
For me, this was the birth of my online persona, and whether or not your story resembles mine, we've all created one. While having a top-notch LinkedIn profile can directly impact your career path, is the amount of time you spend fine-tuning your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts justified?
Even if you claim to not care much about social media, we've all carefully crafted posts and selected particular images over others as part of us creating a highlight reel version of ourselves for our friends, family, and the public to perceive. While I'm not suggesting we start posting anything and everything to ensure our online persona is an accurate reflection of us, I am encouraging you to make your actual persona more relevant than your online one.
4. OUR SEX LIVES
Let me start by saying that I'm not suggesting that our sex lives as a whole are irrelevant, but I am saying that they are not nearly as significant as we make them. Our world is sex obsessed. We allow our moods, decision making, and so much more to all be shaped by sex or a lack there of it.
We all know that sex can be scandalous, connective, and a million other things in between, but is it really worth the average 10-19 times that research shows we are thinking about it daily? (source) Enjoy the role that it has played, is playing, and will continue to play or not play in your life, but stop giving it so much relevance.
5. HOW HARD YOUR PAST WAS
Our past has undoubtedly helped to make us into who we are today, and rather than simply trusting that, we instead love to regularly dwell upon it as if it is still happening now.
Stop polluting your experience of the present moment with specific elements of your past. You may not be able to control what happens to you in this life, but you can always control your reaction to things, and that includes whether or not you choose to drag past pain into it. Just because you were victimized once, does not mean that you are bound to forever be victimized. Again, trust that your past will naturally impact your decision making more than enough.
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