Be true to yourself

So the other day, one of my friends was posting their pictures on facebook. “What are you doing?”

“Posting my pictures from a recent business trip.”

“Why?”

“So that my friends will think I’m really successful.”

“Do you think you’re successful?”

You can imagine what the answer to that was.

No.

But did it matter? Apparently, external validation was more important here.

Why is it that we seek external validation? In reality, it shouldn’t really mean much because when we close that door, we know exactly how our lives are, and how we are on the inside. Just because someone else thinks we’re happy or successful, it doesn’t mean we’ll cry less tears. And yet it’s human nature to seek validation. At some point we might have been seeking it offline, nowadays, our self-worth is measured by the number of likes our pictures get.

In the sunnah, there is a duaa someone says if someone else praises them. It translates to, “O Allah, make me better than what they think of me, and forgive me for what they do not know about me, and do not take me to account for what they say about me.”

 

It makes one internalize the importance of how they are on the inside vs. the image or perception that others have of them. So my message today is simple, before you post your pictures on facebook, ask yourself why? Be true to yourself and don’t project an image of the person you’re not just so that people will go like, “WOOOOW!” because at the end of the day, there’s a swahili saying that goes like, “The thief has forty days (before he gets caught)”…Eventually you will find out that you aren’t really fooling anybody. But yourself, maybe.