Recently, one of the most viral trends from TikTok is “live your life like you’re the main character from a movie”. The purpose is to romanticize your own life and live every single day like a protagonist from a rom-com: self-confident, with high self-esteem, and your day will always be amazing, depending on you.
In this lifestyle, you’re the most important thing to care for. The rest of the people are just some secondary characters that live around you and they don’t matter that much. The most important thing in your life is to care about your body, mental health, academic life and your job.
In these trends, the tiktokers encourage you to have a good food diet, go to the gym, study every time you can, read a lot, and focus on your job. Basically, pretend that your life is perfect until it is.
Luciana Davi, a psychologist, clinic psychopedagogue, neuropsychologist, and psychomotorist, says nothing has to follow a radical direction. It’s possible to live a life like a main character in a positive way:
“In my view, nothing should be seen in this radical prism. We all need a bit of romance, a dreamy and creative outlook. Life seen only through the lens of reason would be extremely harsh, at times even cruel. A bit of fantasy, of dreams, and positive emotional symbolism always strengthens us.”
Luciana Davi, psychologist
Not exclusive in this trend, but it is very common that people reproduce some “viral behavior” seen in social media. Incorporating some philosophy in life can be good and healthy, but it is necessary to take care of which bias you’re introducing in your way of life. About that, Luciana alerts us:
“Social media pillages us in extremely harmful ways for the formation of the self. They bring us an unreal world, laden with stimuli that often sell us ideas of unattainable moments, rampant consumption, and the de-subjectification of the individual. Adopting a lifestyle based on a social network that sells stereotypes and lives that are not our own is certainly a serious risk to your mental health.”
Stereotypes have that name for a reason. It is a conception of an image pre-conceived. Using some lifestyle as a model can be good, but turning this into an obsession is unhealthy.
But the question is: Is it good to romanticize your life? The psychologist answers yes, however, the word isn’t romanticize but prioritize. “To place oneself as the main character of your life means that you prioritize your true ‘state of being.’ We are fundamentally social beings, we need others and social groups to feel alive, creative, and active. There is a healthy pendulum movement between the Self and the Other that needs to be experienced”, said.
“When we prioritize ourselves, we become protagonists of our own story, and we are also responsible for our choices. However, we will never find a fulfilling life without this pendulum movement between the internal and external world occurring.”
Luciana Davi, psychologist
If you imagine that you are the main character of your life make you do good things every day, keep doing it. Put yourself as the protagonist of a rom-com film and live positively. Wake up early, do some exercise, eat something delicious, focus on college and at work. But remember to prioritize people around you when they’re needed, we don’t live alone and we need each other.
As Luciana says: “Living in society often requires a retreat from our own EGO, in order to assist the EGO of another who is suffering, for example. Living empathy, exchange, solidarity… something contrary to what social media often proposes to us.”
The article above was edited by Larissa Buzon.
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