“Text memes” ( pictures that have only text to make the fonts bigger than is standard on Facebook ) or what I call “Facebook Kitsch” usually doesn’t offer much.
Platitudes about how schools should teach gardening, food preservation, soap making, etc, instead of you things like civics, history,math, science, art, and music. You know, things that actually support the preservation of our society instead of preparing for its collapse :-). Excessive jokes about wine, yoga, and chocolate that border on promoting alcoholism. Fake quotes from philosophers or religions like Buddhism.
These two pictures are no less “Facebook Kitsch”, but I found them worthy of saving.
That quote is pure stoicism. A core edict in stoic philosophy is to ( *try* ) be indifferent to what you can not control. That does not mean you can’t dislike it, just that you accept it as a reality right here and now, without making yourself more upset about it than you have to be. Dr. Albert Ellis, one of the two creators of cognitive therapy was directly inspired by stoic philosophy. One of his core edicts was to watch for “Demandism” in your thoughts and beliefs. What he also called “shoulding all over yourself”. People getting upset that something that does exist, by insisting to themselves that it should not exist. Again, learning to not get upset by things you can not control. If there is a boulder blocking the road, you just turn your car around and go another way. You don’t make yourself sick about the boulder being there. You can’t move it.
This second piece of “Facebook Kitsch” also connects with stoic philosophy and cognitive therapy. Just reread that last paragragh! :-).
Many, many people torture themselves about the past. It is that boulder in the road. It can’t be moved. It can’t be changed. As far as guilt goes the best you can do is to try to make amends for your actions and live in a better way in the present. You have no other option.
British Buddhist monk Ajan Brahm likes to make a play on the word “ineffable” by saying “The past is inIFable”.
“That person was attracted to me. If only I asked them out!”, “If only I waited an extra week, I could have taken that other, better job offer!”.
People torture themselves over missed opportunities, but they really do not know those roads not taken would have led them to a better place.
That person you didn’t ask out for a date may have been boring. You may have gotten into a very dysfunctional relationship with them that was so bad that you would have daydreamed about an alternative reality where you didn’t ask them out. That better job offer may have turned out badly. The company may have gone under. The commute may have been hell day after day. There may have been toxic coworkers at that office, making your life unpleasant enough to make you want to resign.
You just don’t know how “what if?”s would have turned out, so don’t torture yourself over them. Don’t torture yourself about the past.
Torturing yourself over “what if?”s is easily transferable to torturing yourself over the future. “What if?”s are the root of anxiety. I’ve found that things often do not turn out like I imagined they would. Often for the better. Feeling anxious about the future will not change it. Doing things for the future, anything, dramatically reduces anxiety. Even when you have a mental block about doing things for something on your mind, feeling anxious about it while not doing anything about it will not help. It is just adding to your problems. Now you have the original issue, plus the anxiety.
All of this is “easier said than done”.
I just wanted to write that I found 2 pieces of worth “Facebook Kitsch”. 🙂
