Rest and Inspiration
Being young is being offered the finest opportunity there is at life. However, we are often plagued by moments of desperation, despair and pointlessness. The good news is that all these moments cannot in any way change the fact that we are young. And just in case you are wondering what all the fuss about being young is about, then you’re in the right place. Article by article, this issue of Adrenaline is designed to offer you the youthful experience. So sit tight and enjoy the ride!
Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram… I’ve even lost count of the growing number of social media platforms we have today at our disposal. Like every invention, there is the risk of misusing and even abusing social media. Unfortunately, not many are conscious of the fact that they are misusing social media when in actual sense they are. Let’s take as an example Ella (my imaginary friend). Like every youth in the social media space, Ella has more virtual friends and followers than in the real world. She chats with just a few, maybe twenty or thirty, but voraciously consumes news feed from the rest. Sometimes she catches herself drawn into comparison with Melisa (the photogenic enthusiast). “What does she have that I don’t. And even that smile of hers is so fake.” Before long, Ella finds herself in a rat race trying to prove that she’s better than Melisa (who is even oblivious of the whole issue) by getting more likes and engagement on her posts.
This is where she needs to pause… not just her but all the more we also need to take that pause to assess and reassess, if need be, the role of social media in our lives. Thinking about the reasons for the rise in the usage of social media among the youth, I could come up with these:
Entertainment: The goal of entertainment is to give pleasure, enjoyment, diversion, amusement and relaxation (which sounds like heaven to me). It is human proclivity to gravitate towards entertainment so it’s no surprise that social media soars high on the wings of entertainment in the world of men. The right use of social media fulfills the goal of entertainment. However, one sure way to know when we are abusing or over-indulging in social media is when we begin to feel bored in spite of using social media. Others for certain reasons try to compensate for this feeling of boredom by switching from one social media platform to another, say from WhatsApp to Instagram. Despite this switch, in no time, they find that boredom still finds a way of rearing its ugly head thus they do what they can to resist the feeling of boredom- which usually involves switching to yet another social media platform. So they spend so much time running from what they will eventually face. A better option, I think, will be to let go of the virtual world during times of boredom and allow yourself to be present and to participate in the real world. Instead of using the feeling of boredom as a permission to overindulge in social media, I recommend that you see it as a signal that beckons you to balance your involvement in the virtual world with your participation in the real world.
🚫 This article is an excerpt from the upcoming April edition of Adrenaline Youth Magazine
Sophistication: One of the reasons why we feel the urge to be present in every possible social media space is because we don’t want to be left out. In a world of complexity and much sophistication, we don’t want to be simpletons. Thus, we try to keep up with all the stories, new feeds and hashtags. In a lot of ways this keeps us informed however, in subtle ways we fail to realize when sophistication degenerates into confusion. And the reason why this is subtle is because a lot of times we feel a somewhat overwhelming desire to keep tabs on whatever is latest. What we really need is to understand that our survival isn’t tied to any of those “latest stuff” . They shouldn’t feel like things you cannot live without. At best, they should just be add-ons; adding up to your already rich life. Anytime you feel obsessed or consumed with the myriad of information from social media, I advise that you see that as an opportunity to step away from the screen in order to regain some clarity and peace of mind.
Branding: Whether for personal or business-related reasons, social media helps us to project an image about ourselves out there that helps to further our cause. For example, if you have much interest in music (or maybe you’re an instrumentalist), you’ll most probably retweet posts from your favorite artistes. That’s your passion and you want to identify with it. This has enormous benefits for the business folks because aside advertisement, customers can be engaged virtually. The downside of branding with social media is that you can be so much immersed in looking good that you forget to be good. I’m a writer so I can talk about writers who always post motivational notes about writing but forget to do the needful- to write. My best tip is that: don’t just focus on the appearance but on what births and sustains the appearance- your state of being.
Ease of expression: Social media offers an avalanche of tools for expressing ourselves. Surprised? There’s an emoji or meme for that. Confused? No need to type out your confusion, just a GIF can do the trick. This makes us very expressive on social media but back in real life where there are no emojis or meme to do the talking, we feel exposed and uncomfortable in our own skin. Sometimes we mistakenly (an innocent mistake we commit) extend the privilege of shorthand typing we enjoy in the social media space to the formal setting (say an examination or an email to your boss). This isn’t a typical problem; it is something that you can limit (if not eliminate) with a little mindfulness.
Continue reading “The Youth and Social Media”
By: Restpirant Samuel
What if we all awoke one day ripped off from one another; insensitive, cold-hearted, deprived of the joy we share and our peace of mind? What kind of world would that be? And how would life in our tiny house be depicted? As I delved into my imagination of what the world could become, my gaze was drawn to nothing but unrestrained violence, anarchy, dirty fatalities and assaults, obscene wickedness, endless episodes of pain, suffering, and sorrows, and even worse to tell. In a world without love, we can only expect the dregs of the ‘evil-laden’ human heart to be fully exploited.
The fact that there is still a place for joy, ecstasy, amusement, and peace in the midst of humanity’s wars, disease crises, wickedness, and sufferings is a result of the ‘Love factor’ at work (divinely-born love). It was Love that gave birth to our world, cared for her, and kept her beautiful (even though, we only see the blights of her first glory). The heinous consequences of sin have dulled our perception of how beautiful our world was and could always be, but Love has made it perceptible.
Without Love, the world would not have been a habitable place. For a world without love is a world without God, and just like a fish removed from its natural habitat, it ceases to thrive, grow, and survive.
God is the source of all love, and He has exemplified this trait in all of His works and actions. With love, he brought all things into being (things that were not, as if they had already existed). By crowning His work of creation with a being like Himself, He demonstrated that Love is the path to a meaningful, happy, and fulfilled life.
The source of life is love. Love is the reason we exist. All the world requires is love. A world without Love is a world that does not exist.
I trust the God who gives light to all men
From the rising of the sun to the setting of the same
He who rains down heaven’s dew upon all
Without discrimination or contempt
He who guides the path of planets
Along their course in perfect order
The sparrows that neither grind nor twine
Have their daily food from his palms
That almighty hand that holds all together
Covers and shields in love all creation
⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️
I trust the Lord whose breath refreshes the weary
And whose words calm every troubled storm
He who reigns in majesty and rules in love
The Lord of great grace that overlooks faults
And overwhelms hearts with love-stricken awe
The one who defies conditions and meets us
Wherever we are, whether at the mountain top or valley low
A God of unconditional love that is never intimidated
By the conditioned state of men
⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️
I trust the Lord of new
He who makes all things new but remains as He is
His nature unlimited by times and seasons
Seasons look up to Him and time waits on Him
Nothing goes beyond His touch of newness
Neither the hearts of men nor the foundations of the earth
Out of the ashes of dried hopes
He makes roses of fulfillment and dreams flourish
He is the hope of a better tomorrow
He is the joy of living, the air we breathe
The one in whom we live, move and have our being
If you’ll ask me, there’s no word more beautiful than grace. Used in everyday communication, grace conveys a sense of pleasantness, kindness, flair and spontaneity among other admirable things.
Even in our darkest days, what we intuitively yearn for is grace- to be released from our fears, mistakes and most importantly, our guilt. Although we sometimes distrust and resist grace, at the core when we are left to ourselves to face the harshness of life, it is grace’s embrace that we seek.
Grace breathes freedom and freshness to those held in the restrictive dungeons of legalism and its burdensome expectations.
Surprised? I bet you are! Even just the thought of a world without laws, rules, requirements and expectations is in itself horrifying to most. How can legalism be that bad? Isn’t that what puts us in line and prevents society from falling apart? Theoretically, yes; but practically, it is nowhere close to fulfilling its promise of making us good and law-abiding.
At best, it simply makes us aware of the good and makes it binding on our conscience so that our guilt and misery is rekindled anytime we fall short (which we usually do… sooner or later).
Psychologists tell us that when addicts (and anyone for that matter) are in a state of guilt for indulging their habits, they are prone to repeating that unwanted habit over and over again; at least for as long as the guilt persists.
You can say that guilt is a counterproductive tool. We like to think that when we really feel horrible and ten times guilty for wrongs we have done then we are ten times assured of not getting involved in such wrongs. But is that really the case- has it ever really been the case?
Once we forget about “what should be the case” and instead be objective enough to see “what usually is the case”, we need no expert examination to expose our delusion.
The problem with legalism isn’t because it is in itself bad (I’ve learned to be lenient with labelling things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’). The issue is with how it impacts us; especially those of us who genuinely want to do what is good and right but can’t seem to find the ability within ourselves to do so.
I think that is where majority of people are; they are looking for a way out of their guilt and misery. When we are at our wits end shackled with the fear of impending judgement and ultimate doom, grace finds its way into our stinky dungeons and with gentle yet firm hands breaks the shackles and lead us on into a well-adorned spacious room on whose entrance are inscribed the words, NO CONDEMNATION.
Your burden of guilt and condemnation is long overdue. Grace is the answer; the ultimate liberator. It is gentle without and ferocious within. When the light of grace shines, all others run for cover.
What’s more, this grace of which we speak is made manifest in Jesus. Jesus is God’s amazing grace made known to all. Let’s join in the grace party!
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