Your follower count defines your value

Why do people crave for attention?

Attention defines the value of people. If more people give attention to you than another person, you are more important and valuable. Attention defines your worth and if you don’t get attention from people it means you don’t have any worth.

Well now that I have offended you, let me say I do not believe this. But this is what modern society expects us to believe. Attention is either given or taken. Both are very important, but it is essential for there to be a balance. That invaluable balance is what we are deprived of nowadays. Most people want attention and don’t like giving it. That is not a healthy approach.

Selling yourself for attention is a very unhappy way to live. Why is this? Because it makes you lose the sense of who you are. After a while you might think, is the purpose of my life simply to fit in with other people? You will not know what you were meant to do because you never tested the waters. You never knew what your peak was supposed to be. You will have poorer creative tendencies as you never pushed yourself out of a certain block you trapped yourself in.

I believe in the fact that everyone has a definite purpose. There is a key to every lock but not a lock to every key. The purpose of a key is only to open a lock. A lock, however, can also be broken open. You must look for the lock you are intended to break or open. Just because everyone else is using a key doesn’t mean you have to too.

Paying attention is important to get valuable attention. Notice how I said valuable. Valuable attention is given by people who want to hear what you have to say, people who take you seriously. An example is in arguments. We know more about a certain subject when we talk to someone with an opposing viewpoint about it or read about it. This opens us to another idea. That can either weaken or strengthen our argument. But, the important part is it improves our argument nonetheless and brings us closer to the truth.

I also believe that attention is a two-way street. If you want valuable attention you need to give it too. Because if you don’t give it, you don’t deserve it either. This is because what you are meant to say is not mature enough as it has never been challenged.

Have you ever wondered what social media businesses like Facebook, Instagram, etc sell to make money? Our attention to advertisers. Our attention has resulted in Facebook being worth $911B as of today and Instagram at $100B. That is what our attention is currently valued at. This is what paying attention is valued at! Somewhere someone much smarter than us realized this and decided to make a business off of it and ended up becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world. Imagine that!

When you stick to something you want to do and like to, more importantly, getting valuable attention in that is much more fulfilling than becoming desperate for it and doing whatever for it. Desperation is something that is never good regardless of what it is. Moreover, getting attention through desperation is more like instant gratification. It doesn’t need much effort and feels good temporarily. But, long spells of it can mess you up mentally and maybe even physically.

When you get attention, there is a power associated with it. We have the power to influence people who are actively connecting with us. Because that is what attention is. It is a connection you form with the other person. For the sake of the connection, we must make sure it is genuine. Everyone has experienced cases of fluctuating attention, a common example is in restaurants. It doesn’t feel good, does it when the person across from you is using their phone during a discussion, right?

Not getting attention makes people embarrassed and thus forces them to take action. An example is follower counts and the number of likes you receive. If your friend or peer happens to receive more likes than you you feel inferior. The same goes with follower counts.

We must learn to control our attention, that way we can control our lives. What you attend to you happens to attract it. And by controlling your attention you can get to wherever it is you want to!