While reading yet another article about becoming your best self through reflection, detoxes, Hyrox, and drinking everything except alcohol “on the rocks,” I noticed most of them shared the same strangely self-important tone. At some point, we started believing everything about us could, and should, be upgraded. We also stopped photographing the view and started photographing ourselves in front of it. The hundred-year-old church became the background decoration for someone’s jawline.
It made me wonder how previous generations would’ve handled all this. Would my grandfather, a farmer, have posted the same things we do now? And if he had, would he have wanted the world to see them? Would he proudly announce he wakes up at 5 a.m. for yoga, meditation and nervous system regulation instead of simply waking up at 5 a.m. because the cows needed feeding? Maybe after an admirable downward dog, he’d finish with an ice bath to “activate endorphins.”
Although, to be fair, back then every shower was basically an ice bath. Would he post his OOTD? A navy farmer’s overall paired with charcoal-black rubber boots. Caption: simple but elevated. Would he proudly assemble a spirulina smoothie bowl topped with chia seeds and goji berries, all ingredients he almost certainly would’ve called bird food? Maybe he’d share the recipe with the men from the local card club, still buzzing from last week’s cabbage cleanse recommendation.
And would he photograph his largest cabbage for the weekly newspaper, secretly hoping it outperformed the neighbouring farmer’s boast from the week before? Because, if we’re honest, envy isn’t exactly a modern invention. Still, I think we all know the answer. My grandfather wouldn’t have written about himself like this. Life, for him, happened inwardly. You woke up, contributed something, complained minimally, and got on with it. Now everything seems to happen outwardly. For show.
We’re constantly encouraged to grow, heal, optimise, manifest, journal, align, expand. Every feeling requires analysis. Every hobby becomes an identity. Maybe all this self-improvement isn’t really about improvement at all. Maybe it’s about control. The comforting idea that if we work hard enough on ourselves, life might finally feel manageable. But I also wonder why we feel such a relentless urge to share. Do we genuinely want to be seen? Or are we hiding behind endless versions of ourselves carefully arranged for display?
My grandfather, meanwhile, was often blunt, occasionally insensitive, entirely unpolished and completely uninterested in branding himself. But at least he was honest. Undocumented. And I’m quite confident I know the answer to whether he would’ve wanted followers. In the end, the only person interested in his daily posts would probably have been InstaGramma.
Authors : Marion Stoop
