All About The Joy

Relationships in Society: A Perspective on Technology’s Role

• Carmen Lezeth Suarez • Episode 94

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How much of our craving for connection is influenced by societal fragmentation? From the shared euphoria at high-energy concerts to the simple bonding over a Barbie movie, we explore how our collective quest for connection drives us to these shared experiences. Yet, we go a step further to dissect the role of technology and social media, often blamed for our societal divide, and put forth a different perspective. We make a case for these platforms as conduits for our shared human experience, if used authentically. 

Navigating relationships, both online and offline, can be a tricky endeavor. In this episode, we tackle the uncomfortable but necessary art of setting boundaries, dismissing the idea of needing to be liked by everyone, and fostering relationships based on understanding and respect. We also delve into how our past shapes our responses and how to navigate tough discussions. To add an extra layer of depth, we invite a ghost writer to shed light on the process of translating personal stories and experiences into compelling narratives. Join us for this insightful conversation about fostering genuine human connections in our fragmented society.

Thank you for stopping by. Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share. You can also support us by shopping at our STORE - We'd appreciate that greatly. Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER: As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast. Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance.

Carmen Lezeth:

Hi everyone. Welcome to All About the Joy the podcast. I'm Carmen Lezeth and, as always, I am really grateful for people who take the time to listen to my podcast. I also wanna give a shout out to everyone who is so supportive of our live stream on Thursday nights at 6 pm Pacific time. Thank you so much.

Carmen Lezeth:

We're gonna have a guest this upcoming Thursday, which will be really fun and interesting, because he is a writer and he's actually a ghost writer. So if you were ever interested in possibly writing about your own life or your own stories, or you have an idea for a book, but you're not necessarily somebody who wants to write it themselves, you're gonna meet somebody who does this for a living. So that should be really an interesting interview. So we'll have him on on Thursday and I would share his name, but I don't want to yet. So look it. I'm just saying thank you. Seriously, I am shocked by how many people are liking our pages, especially on LinkedIn. If you could follow us on YouTube and follow us on Facebook, that'd be great too. What it does is it really just helps us solidify that we have a base of people that are interested in what we're doing, and it just helps me, as a small business, to be able to move forward. So, you know, we always talk about wanting to support small businesses, and I'm just really appreciative of everyone who has taken the time to do that, and much quicker than I really thought. So thank you. All right, let's get on with it.

Carmen Lezeth:

This past week, we talked about just kind of an interesting dynamic that I want to dive into again, which is based on a tweet that actually wasn't a tweet. You know I keep saying that. By the way, I have now since eliminated my Twitter account, and I have to tell you it was kind of one of the best things I've done in a really long time, mostly because I don't want to support Twitter anyways. It's become kind of this really negative space for me personally ever since Elon Musk did turn around and purchase it. It feels like it's just not a great healthy place for me, and so I wasn't really interacting on there, but I was using it as a place to still promote my live streams and some of my small social media posts that I've been doing, and I realized there's not a lot of interaction there. Fair enough, because I'm not taking the time to do it as well. So yeah, and also, I don't think we need to have every single piece of social media. I don't think we have to post on every. It's just too much. You know, I've also never had a Pinterest account. I know there's a lot of people who use Pinterest and I'm a fan of Pinterest. I don't use it at all, so I have no ills about it, but it's just not something I use and I think that's okay.

Carmen Lezeth:

So, anyway, I got rid of that account and I've been checking out threads and a former coworker of mine and now friend of mine, Joel Lava, had posted this thread and here's what it says Barbenheimer and Taylor Swift show that as our society becomes more fragmented, humanity craves bonding events that create connection. So, in my simple way of viewing this thread, this statement that Joel talked about, I'm going to say this we see evidence every day in our lives where we are so fragmented as a society, right, where we see that we are losing connection between each other. And then there are these moments where something happens, and in this case, the Barbie movie or Oppenheimer movie, or the Beyoncé concerts or the Taylor Swift concerts I'll even throw in the Harry style concerts where everybody is gravitating towards being together to enjoy something. Right, because if not, nobody would be buying tickets or they wouldn't be these crazed kind of amazing sold out shows, even though they're so expensive. It's just an interesting dynamic to see, because what he's saying and what I believe to be true I think we all know this is that we all crave to be with other human beings.

Carmen Lezeth:

We're social human beings, so we want to connect, we want to talk, and I know people think it's really cool to be like oh, I love being alone. No, you don't. You're good being alone and maybe you have more tendencies to be okay being by yourself. But at the end of the day, we are all social beings and the reason why, or one of the reasons why, we end up in a spiral of depression or sadness or sickness or illness or mental health is when we do not interact with other people. So stop saying that like it's some cool thing, like, yeah, I'm fine being alone. No, you're not.

Carmen Lezeth:

And here's the other thing that I think is really an interesting thing that people do is they keep saying, yeah, well, covid made us be on social media. Social media has been around way before COVID happened. Did it force us to use technology better so that we could continue to have these interactions, so that we could work, so that we could stay connected with other people. Absolutely, absolutely. But it was, you know, an extreme situation and we walked through it. But this idea that now we're blaming COVID as this reason why we were forced to be online is just another piece of bullshit really that we keep telling ourselves. You know, I mean, being online is a tool. Using technology as a tool is a good thing. So being online is not I've said this a million times and maybe somebody smarter, with more degrees, or somebody who has the resources to make it into a book. You know, it's always somebody else who takes like any thread of idea from other people and then make it into a big, extravagant thing, and I'm fine with it if it helps humanity.

Carmen Lezeth:

Here's the thing being online or being in person is the same exact thing when it comes to connecting and socializing with other people. If you are authentically yourself online. I'm not talking about people who you know don't use their actual names or don't show their face, or you know you have no way to know who they are and they could be a bot or they're not a bot. You know you have the right to do whatever you want, but what I'm talking about is actual people who go online as themselves. You can find out who they are by just typing in their name. You can see their websites, or you can see their live streams or their YouTube or whatever like you start to learn who they are, right. So there are plenty. You know, gary V is probably one of my favorite people. You know he seems to be authentically who he is, whether he's in person or he's on any social media. You know you're not confused. You know his name, you know who he is. I'm talking about those people. So when you use technology as a tool, you are socializing.

Carmen Lezeth:

Now, are there differences from being online and being in person? Of course and we talked a little bit about that in the live stream, and I do think you know people get upset with me because when I go in to be a consultant at companies, people think that I'm a big fan of work from home. I'm not a big fan of work from home. I think some people do really well working from home, I think others do not, and no matter what, there is something that you lose. I love technology and I love you know that we can do Zoom or we can do these kind of conversations online, but there is something lost, and then there's also something gained about being able to be online. Right, there is this amazing ability to be more efficient, to work quietly, to not be at the water cooler.

Carmen Lezeth:

So I really believe that that technology and being online is just another tool. It's another, you know, tool in the toolbox that we use to become better people, to be our authentic selves, and in doing that, we are still creating connections. We are still craving the ability to be acknowledged by other people. Right, we are still doing something that allows us to interact with our family members, our, you know, our coworkers, interacting with friends, doing the live stream that I do. All about the joy. That whole idea is about getting people together once a week, like we used to do back in the day when we didn't have all this computer and technology. But it would be your own neighborhood, right, you would come home from work or rehearsal or whatever it is, and you would sit on the stoop, you know, you would just hang out in the neighborhood and talk about your day, you know, and that's what I'm trying to do with that live stream, with all about the joy on Thursday nights, right At 6pm Pacific time, just in case you don't know. But that's one of the things I'm trying to do is finding connections with people on a regular basis just to laugh a little bit or vent a little bit, or because we all crave that. Right?

Carmen Lezeth:

We all have a need to connect with each other, and the reason why we become so fragmented as a society when it comes to this topic, as far as I'm concerned, is because we don't appreciate the power that being online is. We keep thinking it's a separate entity, so people go in online and don't realize that you have to nurture and you have to do all the same things you need to do in real life in order to establish relationships. Right? I have said this over and over and over again and I'm going to say it again I am friendly with people, whether it's online or in person, or at work or in the neighborhood, right? It doesn't matter Online or in real life. I am friendly with people all the time. But do not get it twisted just because I'm friendly with you doesn't mean we're friends.

Carmen Lezeth:

The ability to be friends with people requires history. It requires a give and take. It requires the ability to have arguments, to have disagreements and not turn around and name call to be angry and not be able to work through things. Like I find it fascinating that people think that just because you've had a few interactions with them online, that now you owe them something, right, and it's like no, no, no, we have not developed a relationship yet. It's kind of like if I meet somebody at the grocery store and you know we have a few conversations now they think that I'm their best buddy or whatever, just because we were talking in the vegetable or fruit aisle or something. You know what I mean in the produce section.

Carmen Lezeth:

Relationships, no matter whether they are online or whether they are in real life, offline, take time, take patience, take an amount of respect that I think people don't have online, and that's kind of what I want to talk about too. Like if you don't respect human beings online. Like, for example, if you go online under a different name. That's your choice, okay. I also have an account that I sometimes go online because I don't want to be bothered. I never comment on that, but I'm just going to say it straight up. I never use my real name when I go to shop or look at stuff. I don't use that real email address because I don't want all of the algorithms and everybody to know that I'm going here or going there or checking this out or whatever. Sometimes I just want to be an observer.

Carmen Lezeth:

But when you take that pretend persona and you start developing it so that it becomes a cruel and bad person and you start interacting with people with the worst parts of who you are, that's where we start to get in trouble and that's what a lot of people do online. The irony is that in doing that, you're just isolating yourself because we end up not liking you and hating you anyway. When you are always pretending to be someone, you're always behind a curtain. Nobody ever really knows who you are and you're using that to be cruel or to be mean or to be evil or to do the things I guess you want to do but would never do under your own name, your own brand. That's when you start. Not only are you hurting other people. Hopefully other people are learning to just avoid and dismiss and ignore nasty human beings online, just like you would in real life.

Carmen Lezeth:

If you come across someone who's just screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs at the street corner. Do you go up and start interacting with them? Do you start turning around and being like, hey, why are you doing this? No, most of us will walk away because we know that person has maybe some issues, is a little bit volatile. I'm going to stay away from them. Maybe I will do this other thing, which is maybe call the cops to make sure that they are helped before they hurt somebody else. We do all these things to stay away from the crazy, nasty people.

Carmen Lezeth:

So why is it that, when you're online and you come across these people who are not being their authentic selves, why are you interacting with those people? Why are you taking so much time and energy to prove them wrong or right? What is it about people who are not their actual selves that is triggering you to argue and fight with these people? That is what you need to do. And here's the other thing If you come across people online that you don't like, you do not have to interact with them, whether they're being their authentic selves or not.

Carmen Lezeth:

Here's the funny part, I feel like, because I see online the same way as I see in real life. I am not confused by the fact that I like some people and I don't like other people. And here's the hard part for most people. I know a lot of people don't like me, Holler, that's a real life too. The people who like me like me and the people who don't are not in my life, and you know what? I think that's a good thing.

Carmen Lezeth:

This idea that everybody has to like you or that you're so fascinating that we have to figure out who you are and talk to you that is a weird ego thing on your part. If you have an interaction with somebody that you don't like online, Papi please move on, do your thing. I know I can tell you people who don't like me in real life and people who don't like me online, and I'm okay with that because my ego isn't so messed up that I think that everyone on the planet is supposed to agree with me, like me or want to be around me. So why am I talking about this? I'm talking about this because I feel again I'm going to go back to the thing that Joel talked about we are craving connections, but it's not because of social media, it's not. It's because we're human beings. That's what we do, and we are accidentally fragmenting ourselves, isolating ourselves by lying to ourselves all the time by thinking that being online means that we don't have to do the work to have the real relationships we want to have because we're online. Just because you exist does not mean I have to appreciate you like you, be in the room with you or put up with your bullshittery, and the same goes for you. And here's the great thing Once you start realizing in real life or on the interwebs or whatever on the internet, once you start to realize that everyone doesn't have to be in your life or, like you, you start letting go of people who do not benefit your life, it makes it really easy to walk away.

Carmen Lezeth:

You know, do I have some regrets? Absolutely. I had one roommate when I first moved to Los Angeles and we were the best of friends and we never had a relationship, but he was my roommate and we had very different lives. But what ended up happening was we would go to the beach together at night, we'd be each other's wingman, you know, quote, unquote. I mean I was his wingwoman and he was my wingman, and we'd go to a bar or we'd go out to a restaurant, and you know what I mean. It was just really kind of a fun relationship and then something happened between us and we ended up not talking anymore and it was kind of a terrible thing, like there were very few people that I dismiss in my life, even if I know it's in my best interest or their best interest that I have any regrets about. You know this person I miss so much all the time. I love him and I miss him, you know. But I also know that it's in his best interest and my best interest that we are no longer friends because we can't be right, because we both crossed the line and we can't seem to figure out how to get connected again. And you know what. That's what happens.

Carmen Lezeth:

But more times than not, when I dismiss people right away, it's when you show me who you are. This is in real life again, or on the Internet. When you show me who you are, I'm good. I am good with making a decision to walk away from you, because it is in my best interest to do that and it's also in your best interest to do that, even if you don't realize it is. Here's the thing, when you can start to understand that other people walk into your life or back into your life, and it's amazing the reason why it's so easy for me to dismiss people.

Carmen Lezeth:

I've been doing this for way too long, by the way, because at first it was a survival mechanism for me as a kid, dismissing people that were not helping me or lying to me or just hurting me right. I was able to realize I think by force as a kid, that I needed to make those decisions to run away from people who were not in my corner. And then over time, I started to see the benefits of that, because it can be isolating to do that. But when you realize that it's better to be by yourself than to be around toxicity, the doors open up and you start to meet and see other people that you weren't able to see before, because when you're in that tunnel, you can't see anything else except what's right there. So when you move that away, you can walk forward and you start to see other people, and I think that's why it's so easy for me.

Carmen Lezeth:

I don't pay attention to people online or in real life who are not worthy of my attention, and that doesn't mean I don't forgive people, like if we make a mistake and they forgive me and I'm not saying that's a real relationship when you get to that place where you can have like I'm not trying to pretend, like people must be nice to me all the time or we're not gonna be friends no real friendships. Real friendships are about having real connections and that means pluses and minuses and negative and positive moments and being able to work through those as friends my best friends and you've met a couple of them so far but Andrea is one of my best friends. We've known each other for a ridiculous long time and the thing that I love about it is like I don't even think we've had a fight in a long time, because we know each other so well now that there's nothing we don't approach each other with in a way that we understand that we can both take it in. Like even if she has to tell me something really horrible, something I need to hear, she knows me so well that she knows how to approach me and I do the same thing with her. But you're talking 20 years of going back and forth and having conversations. That's what a relationship is.

Carmen Lezeth:

So this idea that being online is different than being in real life, I think is part of the problem why people are so fragmented Because people go online and they are not their best selves, they are not their most authentic selves. They are not doing their due diligence in working on relationships to make them what they can be. And so if you're not having any relationships in real life and all you're doing is going online and being a nasty person or an inauthentic person or name calling and being angry at the planet and the world and never being able to see your own problems and your own issues, you can't change nobody else. How do people that are grown motherfudgeon people not understand for the life of them that you will never change other people? My job on the planet is not to fix you. My job on the planet is to only fix and improve and do the best I can for me. That's it. I have no interest whatsoever especially if you're an adult, to sit and try to teach you what you did wrong and who you are and blah, blah, blah. No, I'm not gonna do that online. I'm not gonna do it in real life. You are grown. You are grown if you are incapable of seeing that you are the common denominator in every one of your situations and you can't take the time to try to reassess and look at yourself and be like why is it? Every time I'm in this situation I get this response? I don't know what to tell you because that has nothing to do with being online. That has everything to do with you understanding who you are in the world.

Carmen Lezeth:

So connections are important because we're human beings. The internet is a tool for us to use to keep having these relationships, and the great thing about the interwebs is that we can have relationships and meet people from everywhere. Now I don't have to go to Italy to meet somebody who lives in Italy to try to connect with them and build a relationship. I can meet them online and I can Start having a relationship with that person and seeing if we can become friends, you know. So, for those of you who don't know, I'm totally talking about Nazim, because I want to go visit him and his wife in Italy. But, in all seriousness, I feel like this is a really important part of what we were talking about on Thursday and I couldn't really expand on it. But I do believe that we are fragmented right now as a society, but it's because we as individuals are not doing our due diligence to use the tools we have in front of us to really work on the relationships we want to have.

Carmen Lezeth:

If you really want to have a relationship with someone, whether online or in real life, then you need to do the work to have that friendship, to have that relationship. And if you're not willing to do the work, if you just want to keep blaming people or blaming the internet, or blaming politics or, you know, twitter or whatever it is you want to blame, then you're going to keep being miserable, you're going to keep being sad and you're going to keep not finding joy. I know right. You see how I brought that all around. It's always all about the joy. How can you find joy in every single situation? And if you ask yourself that question, you can start trying to figure out why am I always sad? Why am I always miserable? Why am I always in toxic relationships? Why am I not meeting more people? Why am I? You're the common denominator. You have to figure out for yourself how to find some of that joy. It's not easy, but it is doable.

Carmen Lezeth:

So thank you for stopping by, as always, I really appreciate it. Again, please follow us on Facebook. We have a page there, all about the joy. You can also just find me right, @carmenlezeth. You can Google my name and you can turn around and go to Carmen Suarez. com or Carmen Lezeth. com and you can find everything you need there to just try to follow us, but also go to allaboutthejoy. com and all the links are there to help us out. If you go to double A JOY . com, which is All About The Joy. com, you can also find the links there to all the pages as well. I appreciate everyone doing their best to be as supportive as possible and again I look forward to talking to all of you at the next live stream or again here on the podcast. Until next time, thanks for stopping by. All about the joy. Be better and stay beautiful folks. Have a sweet day.