Instant gratification + world problems = ?
OMG!
I can't believe I was cheeky enough to make an audio blog🔉! Please let me know if you like it ;)
Or, if you prefer reading, here's the full blog post below!👇 (side note: i might have added something more to the text version... :P)
Sometimes, when you work on something that you hold dearly at heart and focus 110% on, you forget voices around you and when you snap back to reality, you start doubting yourself.
You begin thinking, whether your content, or what you believe in, is 💀. Because it doesn't appeal to a world that worships ⚡️instant gratification. It's NOT your type of feel-good posts which you scroll, tap, liked and feel happy about yourself. It's about taking actions that aims at solving problems. It's about having patience to understand underlying issues; it’s about having determination to take daily little steps to reach a goal. It's #firstworldsolutions for #globalproblems.
The inherent nature of world issues is that they are far from everyone (at least in Hong Kong or many parts of the world), which makes it difficult to relate to us personally, but people these days are drawn to instant gratification: If they don’t see the results today, then they won’t do it. So an era with people who CRAVES instant gratification + the urgent need to solve world problems = a dead end.
Which is why I noticed that what I write about is extremely polarizing. Either you like it (and will read it till the end even though I write long-ass essays♥️), or you just don’t give a fuck. I get it. First, after all, not everybody has the patience and resources to care about clothes, make-up, or fitness, or a world outside of their own. Second, why would me choosing not to wear a polyester jacket solve world problems? It doesn’t, not within today. Does what I do even matter? Third, there are more ‘pressing’ issues meaning those which are more emotionally & practically relevant to us, such as the political degradation happening in HK with the shittiest leaders ever. (Oh well, on this.. just pick your battles…)
To make my self-doubt even worse😔, I know for sure someone out there would be like - of course you get to ‘be all fancy and live ‘sustainably’’ because you can afford organic stuff, more expensive fair-trade shit… Yes, that’s all true. Some people say this type of ‘mindful living’ is just another way of showcasing ‘luxury’, that we no longer seek approval by owning luxury handbags or having extravagant feasts. Luxury has just taken another shape into a seemingly ‘mindful’ way of living which is expensive to sustain for normal people - another moral high ground created to make rich people happy about themselves.🙈
True, all true.
But I tell myself, there's nothing wrong with it.
Trying to solve world problems when we have everything we need to live doesn't discount us as anyone hypocritical. We don't have to be homeless or in starvation to justify actions against poverty or hunger. We just do what we can in a way that is sustainable for our lifestyle. It doesn’t matter what other people think as long as we’re doing things towards a common goal. Pretentious or not, I did something that is nice to environment!🌎
“Opinions are opinions, they are not actions. Actions are what get things done. Actions are the beginning of change.”
My ultimate goal is to ask people to first practise mindfulness in skincare/cosmetics, fashion & food.
These are things we commonly consume every single day. I can’t see why we can’t make impactful changes to the world if we all just be a little bit more conscious of our actions. Plus, mindfulness is something that needs to be trained. It’s like a muscle. Mindfulness forces us to think of longer term impact. It asks us to take a step back - to review, to reconsider. It is the opposite of instant gratification, it is everything opposite to a world we are nurtured in. Mindfulness also means patience, whether you believe and can wait it out, to see how step-by-step changes in personal actions can alleviate world problems.
