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The social media mirage — My experience with a colleague in the Philippines
From October 2023 to February 2024, I spent an amount of time living and working in the Philippines. During this period, I couldn’t help but notice how deeply social media is woven into the fabric of daily life for many Filipinos. While social media has the power to connect and inspire, it can also distort reality and foster an unhealthy obsession with materialism and comparison. This realization became particularly clear to me through my interactions with a female colleague whose behavior grew increasingly strange as time went on.
It all began in early December, during a night out with some colleagues. We had decided to drive from Pasay to Makati, a popular nightlife district. As we settled into the car, one of my colleagues posed a question: “What do you hope to achieve for yourself in the coming year?” The woman in question, let’s call her “Maria,” responded with an ambitious and concrete plan to move in the beginning of next year to Cyprus and work there, citing that she had a relative living on the island.
I was intrigued, as I had just spent two weeks in Cyprus with my family back in September 2023. Curious, I asked…
