Dear Influencer,
While you are sunning it up in Dubai, there are families making their way to a food bank for the only food they may get for a week or more. Now, your first instinct might be a defensive one, but hang fire. Yes, yes, I hear you. You worked your way up to the top, so why shouldn’t you enjoy all the holidays you can afford? Well, the most pertinent issue is that I did not say you couldn’t.
Just a month ago, a homeless man died in the freezing cold. He was found, unresponsive, in his tent (the same ones the police have been pulling down, by the way). Now, you may think this has absolutely nothing to do with you, and you’d be right. However, plenty of things do not directly affect us, but that does not stop us from feeling the pangs of empathy; that with which I’m not sure you’re familiar.
We are in a cost of living crisis right now. People are suffering. People are dying. It boggles the mind that I can switch between a video of an elderly woman unable to afford warmth and you on your fifth holiday of the year. The dichotomy is so unbelievably striking that I could be dreaming (I’m not).
You might say, “Well, the government are responsible, not me,” and again, you would be right. Though, what you are responsible for is how you conduct yourself. I hear indignant echoes of, “I worked hard for my money,” but does that mean those who cannot afford the same as you are lazy?
You see, life is a forked path with millions of forest trails. Just because you managed to find gold doesn’t mean another can do the same. There are obstacles that wrangle many that simply don’t affect you. While you are running up that hill, your fellow human lags behind.
I know you love your job, and I don’t begrudge you that. Nobody wants to be miserable in their job, but the reality is that plenty are. I genuinely commend you for working a job you love, truly. But shouldn’t we be honest here? You’ve hit the goldmine of time. This doesn’t detract from the work you’ve put and continue to put into it, but if you had started your social media a mere week later, things might not be so good.
At this point, your life has become one sprawling advertisement. Perhaps social media has inhibited your ability to not overshare. Why do you need the internet to know about your expensive holiday? Contrary to popular belief, this is not a case of “If I can’t have it, nobody can,” this is a case of knowing the fragility of the world around us. Plenty of people come into money, and the first time is all champagne lunches and shopping at Waitrose, but it doesn’t last.
You can have it all and lose it all in the same day. And truthfully, this is the only time I think you might understand. If you lost everything tomorrow, then maybe that rose-coloured lens might eventually melt away. If we can curate more empathy in this world, the soup will blow away.
Sincerely,
Your Fellow Human.
P.S. Dust the sand off your feet before returning to us.