A Kick in the Pants

Sometimes, a kick in the pants is what you really need.

It’s a phrase we hear all the time, or at least I do living down in Texas. I’ve needed a few ‘kicks in my pants’ throughout my life, because some of us need different encouragement than others. It can be hard to actuate change when you’re a creature of habit, but sometimes opportunity can come from interruption. Disrupted routines can cause panic, anger, or even a sense of freedom, and it’s alright if distress is included in those emotions…. But if it doesn’t completely overwhelm you, sometimes it can be channeled as a motivation for change. 

As angry, upset, and disappointed as I am in the conversations about banning TikTok, this is my attempt to pull at least one good thing out of the impending fallout. At the time of writing this, they haven’t come to a verdict or made an announcement about what a ban could look like, or if it’ll happen, but the mere potential of the app being removed creates a lot of ‘unknowns’ for users. My stakes are lower than many others who may lose access, but it’s still a big deal for me…. I found a wonderful like-minded community on TikTok, learned a lot, kept up with news, ventured into new niches, and tried content creation for the first time. 

For a while, I’ve told myself to take advantage of the community I’d found on the app…. That I could expand the methods I use to communicate with people, share my projects, learn from others, and get feedback. Knowing as little as I do about social media, I was intimidated by the prospect of expanding my reach and trying to branch out, so I let it sit in my pile of ‘things I want to do in the future’ and didn’t consider it to be of much importance…. But then TikTok, my main platform, was suddenly put into question, and I would be forced to rely on other methods. 

It’s still overwhelming to be faced with this sudden change, to be sure, but it’s time for me to adapt. I don’t know how every one of the most popular apps work, and for many of them this will be the first time I have an account. There’s no time like the present (I’m aware these links and broadening my outreach may come too late for people to find me elsewhere), but the possible conclusion of TikTok is forcing me to actually check it off of my to-do list and set up my website, other social medias, videos, and more. 

So maybe it’s not a statement about ‘finding a silver lining’ as much as it’s a lesson in accepting myself -- that I’m one of those people who needs a kick in the pants to get intimidating things done. And if I can know that about myself and accept it, maybe I can make these challenges easier for myself in the future.