When the World Gets Loud, Remember Who You Are
On one of the many car rides I took with my maternal grandmother when I was a child, she told me a story about ego—though she never used that word. Over the years, as I’ve thought back on that conversation, I’ve realized that was exactly what she was teaching me.
Those were the days of no social media, no internet, no cell phones, and very few computers anywhere. Life moved slower, conversations lasted longer, and wisdom was often passed down quietly in moments like that car ride.
She told me that when my aunt was very young—my aunt was always beautiful, and absolutely adorable as a child—my grandmother would sometimes speak to family members or visitors before they came into the house. She would gently ask them not to tell my aunt that she was beautiful and not to focus their attention on her physical appearance.
My grandmother didn’t want her growing up believing that beauty was her superpower.
My grandma was cool… and way ahead of her time. Always. In every sense.
Michael Pollan shared that one of his colleagues, a professor at US Berkeley who studies awe, asks his students to draw a stick figure of themselves on graph paper. Then he gives them an “awe experience”—maybe a video of Yosemite or a vast landscape. Afterward, he asks them to draw themselves again. Almost every time, the students draw themselves at half the size.
Awe makes us realize we are smaller than we think—but in a healthy way. It places us back into perspective.
We currently live in a world where we constantly have opportunities to fall into the trap of comparison—with everything and with everyone. We have incredible tools (like the phone I’m holding right now) that allow us to create, learn, and connect. But they also quietly expose us to things that can do more harm than good depending on how we consume them.
Everyone is telling us what to eat, how to eat it, when to eat it, what to wear, what not to wear, how to look, how to exercise, how to meditate, how to live better, what to do, what not to do… how to, how to, how to.
Honestly, it’s exhausting.
There are so many “experts” that sometimes it becomes hard to know who to believe anymore. Communication platforms are overflowing with advice about how we should live our lives.
Our society constantly says, “Get in this box.”
“This is the way it’s supposed to be.”
“It’s easier if you do it this way.”
“It’s better if you do it this way.”
But the truth is, every single one of us was created uniquely different. So why do we allow ourselves to follow molds that were never meant to fit us?
There is one platform in particular that tends to overcrowd my mind—and if I’m honest, sometimes gives me anxiety. On it, most lives look perfect, most bodies are sculpted, and everything seems beautifully curated.
A few weeks ago, I made the conscious decision to step away from it for a while and not let the constant noise affect me the way it had been.
Will I stay away forever? Who knows. But I’m hopeful that moving forward I will visit it far less—and if I do, only for a few minutes at a time.
Life is precious. And we deserve joy, love, and peace.
Just like my grandmother intentionally chose to nurture something deeper than appearance, maybe we can also learn to look beyond the surface—both in ourselves and in others.
Because the most meaningful parts of who we are were never meant to be measured, compared, or curated.
They were simply meant to be lived. ✨
