We are in the wave of online therapy where instead of taking critical advice from our therapists we prefer to scroll through social media and just pick up advice. 

We want to affiliate so much with quotes by famous and wealthy people that we pay little attention to what these quotes mean. Instead we just adopt it, after all if they had said it then perhaps that was the secret to their amassed wealth. 

We also want to believe that a video that has millions of likes and thousands of comments must be true and we want to associate with it. 

But we give so little thought to the adverse effects that this is having on us. 

How does this play out? 

We watch that one vlog of a person who claims to wake up everyday by 6am unfailingly and goes out with a perfect routine that combines all elements of productivity and growth. 

And we want to adapt this system without considering factors of our lives that vary with theirs. 

And then beat ourselves up when we can’t meet up with those goals because then we must be lazy or not motivated enough. 

Here are 4 harmful pieces of advice that I’m certain you must have come across. 

• To have a healthy relationship, you should lower your expectations.

We are made to believe that for you to have a healthy relationship then you need to lower your standard.

I came across a blog post recently that spoke on this issue indepthly. And the writer stated that it was perfectly normal for you to have certain expectations from your partner. 

While some people do have unrealistic expectations, most times people have just regular expectations. 

You do not need to lower your expectations, rather express those expectations with your partner and if they really care about you they will try to act accordingly. 

My advice is to have 2 lists when searching for a significant other. 

The first list is the most important. Your significant other should tick all the boxes on this list. On this list, you can have values that are dear to you like honesty, advocate for mental health, not a misogynist and the likes. 

Then the second list should be things that you want but you could look the other way on. Perhaps you want your significant other to know how to cook but it’s not a priority for you. But it’s a bonus if they tick the list. 

• Embrace loneliness because it means you’re becoming closer with yourself. 

I have come to realise that people mistake loneliness with being alone. 

You don’t become less lonely just because you are surrounded by people. Neither are you lonely because you are physically alone. 

While I always advocate for you taking time to yourself and just sitting with your feelings, this is different from loneliness. 

No matter how you try to fight it, we are all social animals and feeling lonely for extended periods of time is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes everyday. 

Imagine that physical damage translates into mental damage. 

And prolonged loneliness makes you begin to loathe others and yourself and it leads you back to feeling sad and exhausted. 

• Keep pushing until you see results.

We live in a world where all the motivational speakers, business owners and entrepreneurs are all chanting this message. 

Just keep pushing and you will see results. 

But hardly do we talk about knowing when to quickly get off the train before it damages us too deeply. 

Anything you are engaging in that is chipping away at your mental health or physical health isn’t worth it in the end. 

And sometimes you just need to quit. That doesn’t make you a bad person or lazy or unmotivated. It rather requires strength to know when to get off a destructive pattern before it eats you alive. 

Oftentimes we don’t want to quit because we have invested so much and we don’t want to lose all we have spent. 

However it’s best to pull out before you go further. 

Everyone credits Mark Zuckerberg for holding on to Facebook and not selling. 

At the same time mocking Yahoo for holding on and not selling when they should have as the company isn’t doing well recently. 

So how do you know when to quit or keep moving? I will do a post on that soon. 

• You don’t have social anxiety, you are just in the wrong crowd. 

This one I see often and have even heard people around me say. 

Maybe it’s because they don’t deeply understand what it means to have social anxiety. 

Social anxiety as a mental illness isn’t dependent just on the people around you. 

Regardless of the crowd you are in you would still feel the urge that comes with having anxiety. 

While yes you may have some terrible friends that you need to ditch as soon as possible. 

Even when surrounded by your loved ones and those that care about you, these tendencies will still arise. 

This quote just makes people who have social anxiety feel like it’s their fault for having it. 

Closing Remarks.

Social media controls what you think whether you realise it or not so you have to be extra careful about what you listen to and focus on. 

Because that is what you project is on the exterior. Just because a famous person said something doesn’t mean you have to live by it. 

From today, try to become more aware about the amount of influence various outlets are having on you. 

The same way you don’t have to agree with everything I said in this post and I would always listen to your thoughts in the comment section.