Finding Balance In An Hypervisible World
Everyone tells you to put yourself out there but what they do not talk about is how overwhelming and strange it can get. Truly, it has become the order of the day and there’s no clearly stating if it’s positive or negative, it’s just here — and maybe here to stay for such a long time.
Just a few years back, we would all come to Twitter to crack jokes, hop from timeline to timeline, catch feelings and whatever else. Now, there’s positioning everywhere you turn. There’s the increasing batch of people whose bio now tell you where they work or have worked. People who can’t tweet as freely and now have to shuffle with burner accounts and all the other variations not accounted for.
Sometimes, you find yourself trying to gauge where you fit in the big picture. You know some of these people personally, you know what they can do, same way you know what you can do. The visibility is doing well for them but you’re stuck with introversion or fear of not knowing where or how to start.
But here is the thing — or better still — here’s my thing: the only rule is doing the work and making peace with the fact that it’s enough.
People are asked, “tell me about yourself” and they go on to talk about work nonstop. It dawns on you when they stop speaking that you don’t even know what type of person they are and you couldn’t really hold on to anything tangible that they said that gives you insight into who they are without work.
Doing meaningful work is priceless, working for companies that fit like gloves is a blessing, and feeling valued while doing the work seals this trinity.
But there’s more to us all. There’s gotta be.
I try to create balance and make sure that I’m present on professional platforms and do an appropriate storytelling of what it is that I do. But I allow myself grace on personal platforms like Twitter, Insta etc where I can just be Temi — dishing out unsolicited hot takes, yarning about all the sounds that I like and showing off cute pictures in minimal clothing.
There isn’t a pattern to how we should be doing any of this but I think it’ll be rewarding if we craft happiness in doing solid work while prioritizing rest and recovery. Along the way, it’ll be great to pick up new interests from time to time and try to follow through, find our tribe of people and live merrily.
Comedy shows really try to show us balance if we think about it. Quickly, I think about characters like Phil Dumphy, Rachel Greene, Chandler Bing, Amy Farrah Fowler and too many others. We watch them live their full lives while doing the work and when the show wraps up, we only remember them for their person.
So truly, that may be the blue print. To live but also be fulfilled.
