If you want to progress, you can't let sadness, failure, or procrastination get you. Thanks to this nearly miraculous slogan, we may have found bliss.
The few phrases that are currently everywhere in Instagram photos and stories professing to be “inspiring” and “motivating” would do us more harm than good.
The loving expression of social networks hides an insidious commandment that eats away at our mental health to exhaustion.
Before exploring the negative aspects of this seemingly harmless term, we should consider why most of us want to be our best.
While we may easily criticise social media and the culture of the perfect body and life, Dr. Céline Lamy, child psychiatrist and author of The drama of flawless children (Ed. Workshop 10), notes that this habit stems from childhood.
In early life, the desire to improve is strong. To satisfy parental expectations, we must be 'always more' or risk deprivation. e of love and recognition... Something is conditional.”
The expert sees this vision as cultural and especially pernicious in the West. Fighting with oneself is more important than competing with others. As long as you don't have both knees on the ground and show that you've done everything, there will always be a better version that will satisfy my neighbor.”
Therefore, this demand is not personal but rather for recognition and external affirmation. “As we grow up, we look from right to left, we compare ourselves, and social networks will play a role,” says the child psychiatrist.
These platforms worsen this issue even if they did not create it. When there are so many YouTube and Instagram tutorials to "become the best version of yourself in 10 days" explaining why you can't accomplish this Grail, personal growth is hard to grasp.
What is behind this “better version”? No one seems to agree. Answers to a Quora question vary greatly.
“Don’t count hours”, “8 hours of sleep regardless”, “set goals”, “invest”… Internet users talk.
Some advise sleeping "on the floor, with just a thin mattress"—it's hard to see how this would help—but a single reaction shows the mental weight it sustains. injunction.
"I hate these robotic life advice quotes. Wake at 5. Hydrate enough. Discipline yourself. Definitely not. Real change doesn't follow a script."
Whether it's starting your day at dawn or learning a third language, these things will only work for a long.
Because the injunction's limitlessness is a serious issue. Clearly, your best self will always have a more accomplished big sister. “It’s as if we were climbing a mountain that never has a summit,” says Dr. Lamy.
Finally, we don't know. Then normal and better are discussed. Some cultures claim it's the happy, fulfilled version that succeeded in life. But it doesn't make sense because changing and restricted norms lock us in."
First, imprisonment might cause tetany and self-confidence loss. Always demanding the best can lead to passivity. Psychology expert: "Someone told me that by always wanting to be the best, he was mediocre in everything".
This discourse can cause burnout if internalised as a youngster and reinforced by social media as a teen or adult.