According to a wave of recent reporting, the prevalence of taking a selfie is utterly staggering: the average millennial will take 25,700 in their lifetime; it is claimed that females aged 16 to 25 spend five hours taking selfies per week; and on average, 93 million selfies are taken worldwide each day.
That’s a lot of studies of self!
Or rather images of our exterior, it’s almost as if humans have become peacocks, displaying ourselves to the world. The questions that come to mind are, ‘does this behaviour increase happiness’? And ‘does it in any way aide self-development’?
For sure they are fun, although we should all take note that as the desire to capture the most exotic of views behind us increases, the number of accidents and fatalities has commensurably increased! But how come we will devote so much time and effort to grabbing a photo and so little time holding up the metaphoric mirror to ourselves and doing some inner reflection?
For millennia, the practices of meditation, quiet reflection and contemplation have yielded great insights and produced some pearls of wisdom; just take a look on Facebook to see the hundreds of great quotations posted daily. Interestingly, many people are inspired for a short period of time….until the next thing of interest attracts them.
In the land of instant access, instant results, almost instant everything; there comes a price, not in financial terms, but in terms of inner peace and tranquillity. Someone once said to me “if you could bottle peace of mind, you would make a fortune.” Yet peace of mind comes from getting it together with your inner self, taking the time to connect and to communicate well internally, to gain a greater sense of Self and the relationship you have with the world.
Maybe it’s time more people took Real Selfies, but without that selfie stick! J
#RealSelfie
