Lost the battle not the war

Lost to Instagram Algorithm 

Lost to the instagram algorithm. I feel a bit lost to the algorithm of social media. What really happened? I posted a story while watching the movie Dhurandar and the moment I posted I was all about let me see who liked, who saw the story, etc. I spent quite a lot of energy while posting there and all I was in the thought that who liked this story what was the story about, etc. It was not good. In fact, I was not able to concentrate as well the next day. So the point is I lost 3-4 days to the algorithm. You know what happened next, the next thing that happened was I was looking at social media influencers, instagram influencers, and really finding them attractive. That was another mistake and I lost a lot of power during the time. I felt less powerful. I knew I was going in the wrong direction and had to return. Today morning I decided to go off instagram completely. If I have to give, I will quietly post on my account. But I don't have to do that either. I have to be very focused on what I need to do rather than worry about who liked my instagram post. In fact we do need boredom, without boredom, we won't be able to achieve a good life. I think, it happens. The point is that these things do happen and it will distract us and our path. 


Why instagram I believe is not good for me

Like Cal says, it does give you a metric that you judge upon. One thing is for certain that it does give you a sense of confidence about what you want to speak and how you want to speak. However, it also takes away the power. I mean I just cannot get enough of instagram at times to see who is going where. It does not help in my opinion to check who's going where. In fact it is counter intuitive. It will make you feel like doing something and going somewhere but actually you are not going anywhere. For an example, when I did that instagram, I started getting more problems, I also am a strong believer of Nazar so I thought nazar lag jaati hai. So better keep private things private. No need to tell the world. So sometimes you don't want to believe in nazar but maybe nazar is real. We might not really connect with it, but it is very real. It might not seem like, but it is. So when I posted, suddenly, I got pain my legs and everywhere. I thought it was not because of instagram, but maybe it is because of it. I am not able to concentrate sometimes that is another aspect. The boredom aspect of life is taken away from instagram and that is not healthy. You have to be bored. No need to be loud. Just be real. It's okay, if you don't have to speak anything, you might keep mum. But when you are out of instagram, you are doing the valuable things of life. Which brings me to the next chapter. 

Valuable things are produced outside of instagram

Remember that code that you wrote, did you write that on instagram? Remember that friend of yours who helped you, did he post on instagram about helping you? Remember that work that was appreciated by your manager, did he appreciate it because of instagram? Remember the app you created, the buildings that you built, if you are doctor the patients that you healed, were they through instagram or outside of it? Remember the books that you wrote for the writers out here, was that inside instagram or outside of it? I mean, there is valuable content on instagram as well, however, one has to understand that the same valuable content is available in books as well, in blogs as well, in other input streams like YouTube as well. So why do we really need to go to instagram for that valuable content? You will feel powerless if you are on instagram and won't be able to live a normal life for sure. Everything in your life will become a show off.

Going to the gym

Okay, so now you have removed social media from your life. Now what do you do? Go to the gym. Read books. Go shopping if you like to. If you have a relationship, keep that private. You have to believe in quality and not in quantity. So when you remove social media you also increase the chance of you going to the gym. You know what going to the gym signifies, it signifies discipline and tells your brain that your identity is based on doing hard and difficult things. Deep life is a lifestyle and we got to honour that in our lives. 

Eating healthy

It is one thing to go to the gym, but another to eat healthy. When you are living a life that is outside of social media, you will research food and gain knowledge and deep insights on what food is healthy and what food is not. That way you will be able to eat healthy. Without knowledge and knowing of what to cook, you will not be able to cook very well. So you have to be very self assured about healthy eating and gaining knowledge around eating healthy as well. This gives our lives a structure and a way to live our lives. 

Gaining knowledge about exercises

When you are living a life outside of social media, you will be able to gain valuable knowledge about the exercises. What kind of exercises are good and what kind of exercises are unhealthy and not good for you. That way when you gain that type of knowledge, that knowledge will transform your life forever. Remember when I talk about transforming your life, it will make you feel good first. It won't be for the show off, but it would actually have the depth of knowledge that we yearn for. 

Relationships

What about relationships? How will removing instagram help you increase the depth in your relationships? I am sure this is a question that we all will have. What happens is that when you remove instagram or social media from your life, you will not worry too much about what other people think. So the first idea is that you will be yourself. The second idea is that you will build relationships based on what other people do. It won't be dopamine and stimulation. It won't be addiction. It will be peace. It will have boredom. But it will have tremendous amount of growth. That's where we really want to reach in life. 
The problem with today's generation is that we think we have too many options in life. Especially when it comes to instagram, we will have a ton of friends there. You think that everyone cares about you, absolutely not. You will become focused about the friends that are near and dear to you. That is what will happen when you leave instagram. It's okay to feel like you are here in instagram for a reason, but the truth is instagram will only distract you from achieving higher goals in life. So better be away from it and have a life that is intellectual and be more competent in every area of life. Not just work, but relationships as well.

Work

This is probably the most obvious one. When you are bored in life, you will naturally have less stimulation and you will be able to work towards a greater purpose. You won't really need dopamine to feel good. The work itself will reward you with the necessary dopamine. I also feel like you would become more and more confident and thoughtful about what to work on and it will lead you to a focused life. Imagine your energy as a 100. If you give 80% of energy to instagram, you will only be left with the other 20% and it will truly hurt your work. So you have to be more focused in real life and at work, you will need to remove instagram completely from your life. You absolutely do not need any sort of attention in your life. Privacy is power and let's understand that. If they don't know what you are upto, they can never destroy it. That brings me to the next point

Who is earning more money through you? 

This is a much more important thing to be considered. Who is earning money by you posting on social media. Are you making a service to the society ? Most likely not. Are you helping the world by anything? most likely not. When you are on instagram, you might have clicked on ads. When you click on ads, who earns the money, mark zuckerberg, so the design of the algorithm is such that you spend more and more screen time on instagram. If you know that they are making millions of dollars by your time and attention you would know the type of design that Zuckerberg is using in order to trap you. You don't need the dopamine spikes that come from these sort of things. You want real achievements in real life. You want real friends. You want real people. You want real code. You want to build something meaningful in life. That's the only way you want to make money. My point is that if time and attention is considered as an asset and that asset is being used for making money for instagram, why not use the same time and attention as an asset to make money for yourself or your company. I believe that will be 10x more valuable than anything else. 

Comparison

Social media is so surface level that it introduces too much comparison. We compare everything to everyone on social media. But one has to understand that social media is the highlights and not the entire movie of their lives. No one is going to put how sad they feel on social media. But they will brag a lot about their achievements and what they did there. They will be jealous if you are in Bali and enjoying life. They will feel sad by your achievements and you will feel sad about their achievements. So the point is that there's just so much comparison that it will rob you off the joy in your life. So social media one has to understand that will never help you reach the levels in your life that you wish to reach. It will rob you of the time and attention, moreover, it will also rob you of your peace. 

I am sure there might be arguments about how instagram makes you relevant to the world. I think that's a bullshit argument, something is going in your head. But that content is so much more curated that it will make you feel like rushing everything. You really don't want to compare someone else's timeline with your own timeline. It will be wrong. 

What to do instead? 

Okay, so now the question comes what to do instead. How do I rest, how do I spend my time outside of social media. First of all, when you are outside of social media, you will naturally spend time in something better. I believe learning something on YouTube is a great way to spend your time. It can be anything, it can be on finance, it can be on lifestyle, it can be cooking, it can be related to gym, anything, that way you will at least spend time in something that's better for your life. The other thing can be creating, creating content on social media that's a completely separate website that can be done. You can create personal projects during the time. You can get certifications from different aspects in your work. You can learn so much and that learning will only compound. You can travel somewhere not to take pictures but to just be somewhere and experience something new. You can learn a new hobby or a new skill. There are just so many ways to spend time that's not on social media. 

Replace stimulation with craft

The deepest satisfaction comes from:

  • Code that works

  • A body that’s trained

  • Knowledge that compounds

  • Relationships that feel safe

  • Silence that feels full, not empty

None of these are optimized for Instagram.

So instead of asking:

“What should I avoid?”

Ask:

“What craft am I devoted to?”

For you, that’s clearly:

  • Work that requires deep thinking

  • Physical training

  • Learning (books, systems, knowledge)

  • Meaningful 1–1 connections

Craft > audience
Depth > visibility
Respect > validation

Slow down

I ask you, the reader to slow down and think about the consequences that instagram is having in your life. Is your life any better after instagram? If yes, then use it. Use it with all your heart and soul. But if there are more negative consequences than positive, and the net is negative then using social media is of no use. Remember it's about the net out here that matters and not the positive or the negative in isolation. Negative is probably time and attention, if somehow you are able to train your mind to go to the instagram environment and comeback in peace, well that would be great. But I am telling you, the decision is yours.  I also want to leave you with the thought on Virat Kohli.

https://youtube.com/shorts/QRUXl_kb0Vc?si=L3Kkz668ZjjrkoFA
https://youtube.com/shorts/F_bY4DTxIAw?si=hFZSM1YneTz6Qd83
https://youtube.com/shorts/WbzFAsKcNcM?si=_BvwnYmXmW1uxiqR
https://youtube.com/shorts/_Ovk8GXXYvk?si=f9tZGv27WbOVM174
https://youtube.com/shorts/TJ1cwrs3LyA?si=a3fKcLDPlk01PTAx

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