For a while now, we stopped simply being and started performing. Our hobbies became content, every opinion needed to sound profound, and every quiet moment had to be converted into a highlight worth sharing. It is now as though life no longer counts unless it is visible, consumable, or at least interesting enough to deserve a reaction.

But here is the irony, in our desperate attempt to stand out, we have all started to look, sound, and act the same.

Scroll through any social media platform today and you will see the pattern. We read the same books because they are trending on TikTok, we caption our photos with the same tired affirmations, and we curate our “messiness” with just enough imperfection just to appear authentic. It is simply originality in mass production and somehow, we convinced ourselves that it is personality.

We didn’t always live like this. There was a time when being ordinary was not a crime. Then, people had hobbies that didn’t need an audience. You could love something quietly, without needing to post proof. Now, silence feels suspicious. If you are not tweeting, uploading, or explaining yourself in aesthetically pleasing paragraphs, you are invisible.

The world today is designed for performance. LinkedIn wants you to be ambitious. Instagram wants you to be aesthetic. X (Twitter) wants you to be witty and opinionated, while TikTok wants you to be funny but not too serious, relatable yet aspirational. It is an endless audition, and no one gave us the script.

We post our coffee routines, our reading lists, our skincare regimens, as though each detail proves we are living well. Yet behind all that, many of us are quietly unsure who we really are when no one is watching.

It is strange, isn’t it? We talk about authenticity all the time, but the moment we try to be ourselves, we end up mimicking the same version of reality we have seen online. Vulnerability now feels like a soft, filtered sadness. It’s arranged so others can see it easily. We shed our tears, but not before checking the lighting and the angle, hoping our pain looks just real enough to be shared.

We have now built a culture where boredom is unacceptable and silence is viewed with suspicion. You must always be producing something, either a thought, a look, a take, or a reel. And if you aren’t, people assume you have gone missing.

But I am slowly learning that being interesting is not the same as being alive.

Sometimes, the most profound moments are the ones no one sees. The quiet night walks with no playlist. The unposted dinners with friends. The unfinished ideas that never make it to the internet. Those are the moments that remind us we exist and we don’t need to perform to be valid.

Don’t get me wrong. It is okay not to always have a hot take. It is okay not to be chasing virality, and it is also okay not to turn every passion into a personal brand. But you are allowed to be ordinary because that is what gives life its authenticity.

There is something quietly revolutionary about being content with your life as it is. To read a book because it calls to you, not because it is trending on book-tok. To love someone privately, without announcing it to a thousand strangers, or to take a walk without needing to capture it in cinematic slow motion.

The world does not need more people trying to be interesting. Rather, it needs more people who are genuinely interested in life, in others, and in being present.

So maybe the next time we feel the urge to prove that we are unique, we can pause and ask ourselves, “Am I doing this for me, or for them?”

Because the truth is, the most interesting people are rarely the ones shouting about it. They are the ones quietly living, learning, and laughing without the pressure of performing. They are too busy being real to worry about being relevant. And maybe that is what we have been missing all along.