Hey rockstars,

I recently read Rose Hirst’s essay for Roe Magazine, Not Everything Is About You. Please Learn to Scroll, about the strange habit we seem to have developed of encountering something online that does not perfectly fit our preferences and immediately treating that as a problem. The article talks about “what-about-me-ism”: the impulse to see a recipe for banana bread and comment that you don’t like bananas, or that you’re gluten-free, or that you don’t own an oven. Instead of recognizing that something simply isn’t for us, we expect it to become for us.

I loved the essay. I thought it was funny, I agreed with it, and I immediately started thinking about all the places I see this happen online. And then, naturally, Instagram humbled me.

A few days later, I saw one of those posts about what each zodiac sign can expect in the coming weeks. I’m a Pisces, so obviously I read mine. There were some good things in there, but there were also a few ominous predictions about difficult conversations at work. Instead of doing the extremely reasonable thing and continuing to scroll, I immediately started wondering where those negative things were going to show up in my life. What difficult conversation? With who? Is something about to happen?

It wasn’t until today that I had the incredibly obvious realization that there are hundreds of millions of Pisces in the world. We cannot possibly all be heading into the same reckoning. Some Pisces are thriving at work, some are retired, and some are five years old and don’t work. Suddenly I realized I had found another version of the exact phenomenon I had just been reading about: sometimes we encounter something that isn’t for us and demand that it accommodate us, but sometimes we encounter something and assume that because it reached us, it must be about us.

I think the internet has made that particularly easy to do because so much of it actually is personalized. Spotify recommends music based on what I listen to. Netflix recommends shows based on what I watch. Instagram learns what keeps me looking at my phone. TikTok quite literally calls its main feed the “For You” page. Everything is constantly telling us, We picked this for you.

And a lot of the time, the algorithms are pretty good at it. But there is a difference between something being served to me and something actually applying to me. An algorithm can know what I click on, but it cannot know me. It can know that I stop scrolling for astrology posts, but it cannot know the actual state of my relationships, my career, my friendships, or my life. It knows data about me but it is not the same thing as knowing me.

The funny thing is that I already understand this perfectly well in another context. I love tarot, in part because tarot requires interpretation. You can pull a card that has dozens of possible meanings, and I naturally filter those possibilities through what is actually happening in my life. If a card could represent a promotion at work or a proposal, and I am waiting for good news about something at work, I am perfectly capable of thinking, Ooh, promotion! I don’t immediately start wondering whether someone is secretly shopping for a ring. I understand that I am the one interpreting the information. I take what resonates and leave what doesn’t.Apparently, I need to bring a little more tarot energy to Instagram.

Because “please learn to scroll” doesn’t only mean accepting that every piece of content does not need to accommodate me, it also means accepting that every piece of content does not need to become about me. Not everything I encounter needs to become an assignment. Some things can be interesting without being instructive; some things can resonate without being prophetic; some advice can be good without being good for me. Some opinions can pass through my field of vision without being invited to take up residence in my head.

When I told my mom about how I’m about to publish this post, she said, “Everyone thinks they’re an expert on everything these days,” and I think that is the other side of the same problem. We can watch three minutes of someone’s life online and decide what they should do differently. We can watch an edited reality show and decide we understand someone’s entire personality. We can see how a stranger dates, spends money, dresses, works, exercises, eats, decorates their house, or celebrates a milestone and immediately know how we would have done it better.

The internet makes it incredibly easy to have an opinion, and then gives us a little box where we can immediately deliver it. 

But having a reaction does not make me an authority, and having an opinion does not mean I need to deliver it. 

Maybe I wouldn’t spend my money that way, maybe I wouldn’t want that relationship, maybe I would never move there or take that job or throw that wedding or make that particular life choice. Okay. I’m also not them.

There is a difference between I wouldn’t choose that and nobody should choose that. 

I think there is a quiet kind of maturity in learning that distinction. I have plenty of opinions, and I am not trying to become a person without preferences or judgment or convictions. There are things I believe strongly, things I think are right and wrong, and choices that affect other people and deserve scrutiny. But there is also a huge category of human behavior that can simply be filed under: not how I would do it. And then I can keep moving. 

I read a quote approximately 10 years ago that said: maturity means not everything needs my opinion. 

If I want the freedom to make choices other people would not make, I have to extend them the same freedom. Someone else’s choice is not an argument against mine, and mine is not an argument against theirs.

This brings me to the part of this that is probably hardest for me. If I can acknowledge that my opinions about other people’s lives are filtered through my own experiences, preferences, values, and incomplete information, then I also have to acknowledge that other people’s opinions about my life are filtered through theirs. Maybe I don’t have to give every one of those opinions so much authority.

I have spent a lot of my life caring about external validation. I like praise. I like when people are excited for me. I like being understood, and I like knowing that the people I care about approve of what I’m doing. I don’t actually think there is anything wrong with that. But I am learning that there is a difference between valuing other people’s perspectives and outsourcing my judgment to them.

Some people know me well enough that their opinions deserve serious consideration. I value when my closest friends tell me when they think I’m making a mistake. I often seek advice from people I trust, and I want to be challenged by people who love me and know enough about my life to see things I might not. But not every opinion deserves the same amount of authority. Someone can disagree with my choice without my choice becoming wrong. Someone can dislike something about me without that becoming a problem I need to solve. Someone can misunderstand me without requiring a closing argument from me. And sometimes someone can give me perfectly reasonable advice that I still decide not to take.

Maybe the advice is right for them. Maybe it isn’t right for me. I don’t want your life, and you don’t have to want mine.

It is really all the same exercise in discernment: not everything that reaches me is for me, not everything I encounter requires my opinion, and not every opinion about me needs to become mine.

Take what resonates. Leave what doesn’t. Let other people do the same.

Sometimes it just isn’t for you. And that’s okay.

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

Stay awhile! Subscribe to The Sunday Check-In for a new note every Sunday or send me a note at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com—topic suggestions, thoughts, rabbit holes, and hellos are always welcome🙂❤

If you’d like to support this little corner of the internet, you can also buy me a coffee ☕