Jasmine Howson-Wright: Drowning in the Now

Anybody noticed how ‘necessary’ it is for people to achieve results instantly? Think about how much of a disease it is considered to fail at something or how reproached an individual can be, just because they aren’t ‘obviously’ winning? I’m sure you have; that’s the thing. We are so consumed, in our social media arena, with understudying others and vetoing whether or not they should be relevant in life. We are all drowning in NOW!

Not to be mistaken, I totally believe in “one life, one day, one moment, so live like it’s your last”,  but only as far as it concerns purposeful living – shared, loved, concerned and deliberate. No one is perfect, but we ought to live in the hope of attaining perfection through God.

However, here are a few things I have observed:

1) True success is not instant.
2) There is absolutely nothing wrong with failing.
3) There are no general rules to be applied to an individual’s win.

It’s quite sad that younger ones are growing up to see and accept heartily that they are nothing if certain patterns of success don’t fall in place i.e. They do not have a huge following on social media; they are not recognized by the influential folks around them; their creativity and intelligence isn’t celebrated, and all of these instantly!

It’s more saddening that we have empowered the belief that failure is the death of an individual. It’s truly heartbreaking that now, the world must know you won and if you cannot show this, then you cannot sit with the rest of us (I mean, we are the world aren’t we?)

How did we get to this? When did failing ever get more negative attention than the continuous act of it? How do we write people off totally, because they didn’t make the cut? They failed our tests once or twice, because they failed to achieve at that moment? What happened to the underlying questions like “Were they ready?” “Were they qualified for that level of testing?”

What happened to learning and becoming better from not attaining at first? What happened to trying and trying again?

What happened to believing in the impossible? What happened to the patient dog?

What happened to individual discovery, to truth, what happened to a steady climb and fulfillment? Why should an individual’s decision to be private or private about their success bug the world?

Why must a win be authenticated by perfect strangers, hence the desperate need to publicize it? What rule compels this? How did we empower total strangers through social media?

Why is success so ignorantly rated by how well it’s achieved in the shortest time on the loudest platforms by the strangest folks?

How are we all drowning in NOW and not even realizing it?