Self-fulfillment in the Information Age
How do you describe yourself? Are we just a reflection of our family, friends, and acquaintances? Or are we more?
Many of our past articles here at The Young Leader dig into social media, and our message has always focused on offering experiences—opportunities for you to express yourself, jump out of your comfort zone, and discover what engages you. In a word, we care about and want to support your self-fulfillment.
Within this brief article, we’ll unpack this word and explore why this idea matters a great deal for our personal lives.
In short, self-fulfillment involves realizing your deepest desires and capacities. It’s a fluid concept that transcends keywords, text, images, video, and even our most vivid memories. But at the same time, self-fulfillment doesn’t at all require us to isolate ourselves or engage in extensive self-reflection. We realize our capacities through the kindness and perspective of others; we experience our deepest desires with those we cherish most.
Our values and personal sentiments get reflected through the mediums we engage together—moving, speaking, typing, photographing, and videotaping—rather than the other way around. Social media and all the other technologies we engage in offer a variety of spaces for us to connect. But ultimately, we each decide which of them are most fulfilling—we continually assert ourselves through both our presence and absence from communities.
And what we each find fulfilling at a given moment isn’t necessary what we achieve most in. As a high-achiever, you may find it refreshing to have those activities or moments where you can free yourself from the constant pressure and stress that achieving may bring. For those difficult moments during your journey towards success and achievement, keep this quote from The Lesson of Grace in Teaching by Francis Su in your back pocket:
“Your accomplishments are NOT what make you a worthy human being.”
Contributed by Nick Fochtman
