Social media and self

How do you use social media?

You have the right to perform your duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.” — Bhagavad Gita

In a quiet room lit only by the glow of a small screen, a seeker sat cross-legged, thumb hovering over an endless river of noise.

The river had many names — Facebook, X, Threads, Instagram — but its nature was one: distraction dressed as importance. Every swipe brought a new world.

A smiling face.

A victory pose.

A hidden pain masked as success.

A thousand lives shouting, “Look at me.”

The seeker paused.Once, this river swallowed hours whole. It fed comparison, stirred restlessness, and left behind a strange emptiness — like eating without nourishment.

But today was different.Today, the seeker did not dive in. Instead, they watched. Not the people — but their own mind.

A flicker of envy arose.They noticed it.A whisper of judgment appeared.They noticed it.A pull to scroll endlessly tugged at the fingers.They resisted it.

The battlefield was no longer outside. It was within.Social media had become Kurukshetra.

On one side stood Habit, Comparison, and Escape.

On the other stood Awareness, Discipline, and Detachment.

The seeker chose their side carefully.They closed Facebook.They ignored Threads.They turned away from Instagram’s parade of lives.Instead, they opened YouTube — not to wander, but to extract.A shortcut. A lesson. A single idea worth keeping.No more.

No less.“I will take what is useful,” they said silently,“and leave what feeds illusion.”

They began to write.Not to impress.Not to perform.Not to blame.But to observe.Each word became a mirror.Each sentence, a question:

Did I change today?

Did I grow, even slightly?

Or did I drift like the rest, lost in noise?

The world outside continued its display —victories, struggles, silent suffering hidden behind filters. But the seeker saw through it now.

Every “show-off” was not about them.It was about each person fighting their own unseen war. Tiny people, in a vast world, doing what they could —surviving, hurting, celebrating, pretending.And the seeker?

Just another tiny speck.But a conscious one.They no longer scrolled to escape life.They used the tool to sharpen it.They no longer consumed endlessly.They selected deliberately.

They no longer compared.They reflected.Social media had not changed.The seeker had.And in that quiet shift,a powerful truth emerged:Real growth was invisible.Silent.

Unseen by the world.But deeply felt within.The phone dimmed.The room returned to stillness.And the seeker smiled — not at the world,but at the small victory within.

“Let a man lift himself by his own self alone; let him not lower himself. For this self alone is the friend of oneself, and this self alone is the enemy of oneself.” — Bhagavad Gita