Doom-scrolling: the ultimate comfort and inevitable doom of productivity used to disassociate from the present moment. At least, that’s why I use it! When my body feels like a broken AC unit during a nasty virus, I doom-scroll. When I sit passenger, I doom-scroll. When I am waiting for a class, I doom-scroll. When I wait for the water to boil, I doom-scroll.
You get the point! However, there are a million other things we could be doing when we choose to fill those in-between times in life. Reading a good book is one I should probably be doing as an aspiring writer, but alas, the phone often wins in this day and age.
Sometimes, the daily (hourly) phone visit brings me to helpful accounts on Instagram or Pinterest that actually inspire me! So, I’ll share some of my favorites here today.
Studryl: Redefining Success
Studryl is an account hosted by Cheryl Ng, and the best way I can describe the feel of her content is comforting advice with an emphasis on forgiving yourself often and with purpose. In the heat of the hustle in the world, we often experience self-doubt, burn-out, the feeling of being lost, and infinitely more struggles. Those topics are exactly what she addresses to try and redesign out mindsets and have us build a more understanding and kind attitude towards ourselves.
I’ll highlight some of my favorite pieces/quotes from her here!
If you want to learn more about Cheryl and her mission, this post is a great start to understanding her page. As ambitious young adults, or really people at any age who yearn, we fall into battles with failure and how to deal with it. More often than not, when we are introduced to challenges and failure when we start, say college, we sometimes stunt our own ability in our mind and decide that we were asking for too much. I know I have felt in the past that pursuing Film was a huge mistake because I just didn’t have the same drive as my peers for the hustle in that industry, and what I wanted to do never looked like what they wanted.
When I feel this way, quotes like “You don’t need a title or permission to make a difference. You just need to begin — where you are, with what you love — and trust that it’s enough,” really comforted my worried soul.
THIS ONE EATS. Let’s be honest, the biggest challenge we struggle with in life is not how we perceive others but how we perceive ourselves. The saying is true, we are our biggest critics, and when we are left to our own thoughts and hold these insecure feelings all in, it can destroy us. It’s unrealistic to think we can solve all our problems on our own, and sometimes all we need to break the cycle is a little Instagram post advocating for us.
Consider this a pick-me-up account! Now let’s move onto the next!
Study With Ara: The Anti-Rot Agenda
While starting up this website, I have enjoyed viewing online peers’ websites! I found Ara’s content firstly through her Instagram account while following her post series called “The Anti-Rot Agenda.” She curates multi-image posts that compile mindful thoughts, productive blog/article reads, and nice activities to do according to the season. Not only is her graphic design so aesthetic, but she creates a bundle of productive and positive content that feeds the soul. I read them like a self-care package!
Here’s the ninth installation of this series. As you can see, the mindful moment here is “filling your cup” which I think is just swell! The promotion of kindness not only to others but ourselves is such a powerful message, seriously! Content online recently is very reactionary and riddled with controversies of the world and Internet, that we can sometimes lose sight of life’s basics like putting intention behind our kind moments. Smiling a little brighter when you say good morning to a teacher or friend, writing in our calendar planners, and making a special latte are all examples of kindness to ourselves and others.
Kindness is wonderful. I know it seems silly to say, but as adults when was the last time we sat down with ourselves and thought about the notion of kindness. I am major projecting here because I haven’t thought about kindness and what it means to myself in a while. Obviously, I lead with a kind nature in life, but I don’t put much intention behind it and sometimes that leads to me being less kind to myself. Don’t sell yourself short dear reader!
A moment of appreciation for those pretty pictures! Sorry, permission to let a white girl geek out: I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to pretty photos that make my brain happy just my admiring them and I desperately need every single image used in this post to be in that board effective immediately. LOOK AT THE ICE CREAM. I digress.
I want to touch on how helpful the article reading slide is, especially for this fourth post. The article is all about the realities of our twenties and it is written so powerfully with hard-hitters like:
“but the deeper grief of this decade isn’t just that things are hard. it’s that they’re hard without a name.”
“the magic wasn’t in becoming who you thought you’d be. it was in learning how to be with who you are, even before the story got good.”
“the truth is, most of the pressure you feel comes from invisible scripts you didn’t write. success at 24 is not more impressive than stability at 32.”
That last line just about took me out…
This article make important remarks on how we pressure ourselves to live this aesthetically filled decade with clarity and fulfillment with little to no challenge, and discusses steps to unlearn that thought process and unwrite that shame of incompletion. Uncertainty is the name of the game, progress is too. I believe the picturesque life we are sold online assigns us these cookie-cutter deadlines for when we are supposed to get our big break, get our first house, etc.
Ayushi Thakkar, the author of this lovely piece, reminds us that its okay to have days that don’t match the vibey plot we have written for ourselves. In the same vain, my mother always reminded me: “Don’t live a scripted life.” We are all on a path, and it would be extremely robotic and boring if everyone achieved success in the same linear pattern. Finding your definition of success is like those wonky straws that are shaped like wearable glasses except much, much larger because life is quite long.
I’ll link the article below. Please check out Ara and Ayushi Thakka’s piece!
Another spectacular part of Ara’s productive presence is that she makes really aesthetic and pretty calendar wallpapers! The current October ones are perfectly cozy and fall-loving… maybe I need one. However, my current computer background is a dog smiling with a flower in its ear so that might be hard to part ways with.
Yan: Self-Improvement Comfort-core Nostalgia
During one of my bi-weekly ruts, I kept getting recommended a video titled, “things I no longer believe in.” Now, I certainly tried to ignore it as I do any new YouTube recommendation in an act of vain consumer defiance, but by the third time it showed on my home page, I clicked!
Here is the video. Yan’s channel only had a handful of short form videos with little messages that are her in front of a webcam, giving some advice with pretty yellow subtitles and that muffled computer mic sound that itches a part of my brain perfectly. Other than the nostalgic feel, her message in this video really hit home for me as a new adult and it was a concept I never thought of:
We can let go of our past beliefs and still be ourselves.
If your attention span has rotted beyond saving and you can’t stay on a YouTube video for long, fret not, for most of Yan’s videos are under five minutes each. I used to watch them as I ate breakfast in the morning before class in my first semester of college. It’s a great pick me up if you are feeling lost, and her catalog of advice has bloomed so there’s some good talking points for just about everyone!
“what I don’t have time for.” Another big hitter for me to hear, and honestly a video I need to rewatch more often.
As a young adult, and certainly any age ever, I worry and stress until my heart has no more space to care for myself. Yan, also known as Kristine, touches on the act of worrying and how we shouldn’t spare time for worrying. It doesn’t solve our problems, it adds to it — this goes for unhealthy coping too.
She speaks on plenty more and please do watch the video completely, but the one that stuck out to me was hustling in silence.
The time spent talking about what we will do could instead be spent doing it.
This quote is absolutely abominable and I cannot express to you how called out I felt. This blog is a great example! I have said since the beginning of college that I wanted to start a personal portfolio blog about anything and everything. By the time this is published, I will have one year left in college! You readers don’t know procrastination like this diva. However, I am getting it done now.
The time I spent trying to block out time and worry about when I can write was truly a waste. I have just about seven different alarms on my phone that go off throughout the week to tell me when I should work on the blog or my book. It is so easy to ignore — it’s one swipe away. I find that I am most successful when I just do things on a whim. I am literally writing this blog post while my boss at my internship is at a meeting.
Let’s all collectively hold hands virtually and pray that we will continue the grind spontaneously in whatever way we can. Even if we are typing away on our lunch break. Less talking! More typing!
Enough of that side rant. Overall, the Yan channel is a wonderful place to go to reset your mindset and have a moment of peace. Kristine uses really soothing music and it makes the video feel like a warm, assured hug.
Conclusion
Well, folks. That’s it for now. I would love to make this an installment series since I believe curating the online media you consume is a crucial skill to living life productively in this uber-modern age. Social media is a sore spot for people since these apps are created to suck the life energy out of you by keeping you hooked for hours, but they can also be powerful and uplifting tools if you take control.
In this author’s opinion, social media provides a unique platform to connect with others and learn from each other, especially when we share great words of advice. Sometimes instead of feeling worlds apart, we can relate a little more to others in this crazy online world.