Stop Comparing Yourselves to Other People on the Internet
When I was younger and full of life (I say, as I type this from my comfy memory foam mattress at 8:47 p.m. on a Thursday night at 27 years of age), I went out a lot. And by a lot, I mean that every Thursday through Saturday night in 2018 I was out dancing my little heart out completely sober with my friends (yes, you read sober correctly). I lived for being out on the town with my girlfriends and posting pictures to Instagram like the world was surely ending tomorrow. To the outside world I am sure it looked like I was having the time of my life, living it up, and enjoying my early twenties to their fullest extent. However, that couldn't have possibly been further from the truth.
Every night that I went out, I'd wake up three hours later to go to a job that started at six o'clock in the morning. I was exhausted constantly, and was going through personal things that absolutely needed my direct attention and I was giving it anything but. By "enjoying my life" I was avoiding my problems. It was easier to tamper down what I was going through by booking myself up so heavily that I quite literally couldn't think of anything besides why is this freaking parking space outside of Concrete Cowboy so narrow?! By having fun I was pushing everything down, and I'd really never, up until that point, been more miserable.
To the outside world? I am sure I looked like I was having the absolute grandest time of my life. I wore heels and did my hair and hammed it up for the camera because I was "young". But isn't that always the tricky and peculiar part of social media? What you see could quite literally not exist or be doing as amazing as you think at all. While scrolling, you could see someone post the most lovely, grandiose love story with their partner for an anniversary and then two weeks later their page is swiped clean of any evidence that relationship existed. Someone posting that they just graduated could be going through the most gut-wrenching personal catastrophe known to man, and you'd never know it. Because that's what vanity platforms like Instagram are all about: they just show you the picture. And that's absolutely why you need to put your phone down and stop doom-scrolling like there is no tomorrow obsessing over why that coworker you hate is in Bora Bora when your last vacation was to Boca Raton, Florida four years ago visiting your grandma; or why Brittany from biology freshman year got engaged before you. Sure, it might suck to see it, but no one mentions the 47 times they and their fiancè broke up in college in that engagement announcement; or the 4 out of 7 days in Bora Bora your coworker was stuck in her villa and not zip-lining (or whatever you do on a luxury vacation) because it was pouring rain.
Social media is not real. Take it from me - I was posting like my life depended on it, and I was never, ever more exhausted, tired, overworked and miserable as I was then. Turns out balancing two jobs, full-time classes and maintaining a wildly over-the-top social life is not what the doctor ordered, and definitely not something everyone advertises when they show off their lives on the 'gram. Whatever you see on social media, immediately question it. That girl got a new Chanel? Question if there's debt behind it. Also, a lot of people can rent handbags and return them a month later. Your life is not in a linear competition with anyone else! Question everything that you see. Influencer renting a high-rise apartment when you're watching "Gilmore Girls" on the couch of your three-flat walkup? Remember, behind every extravagant flaunt is a sacrifice, and to have that view they could be sacrificing the happy relationships you have time for to make content to afford a life like that. They might give their left leg to have the time for a "Gilmore Girls: night, and your life is what they're jealous of. You never, ever know. What you have could be something they desperately want but had to give up. You never know what is happening behind a photo, behind the camera, or inside someone's mind when the camera goes click! It's the easiest thing in the world to get depressed when you see a new influencer do an "unboxing" video featuring their new Hermès Kelly or Dior slides, but you will never know what it took or what they sacrificed to be able to open that package and then put the camera down. The aftermath of that unboxing could be happiness, and it also could be loneliness. Would you rather be lonely with your new Birkin? Of course. But lonely is lonely, and no one dreams of a life like that. Everyone is fighting an internal battle you know absolutely nothing about. So it's simply useless comparing yourself to your high school ex-best friend and her amazing wedding when you don't know if a fight happened after the cake was cut.
I'm sure someone out there is saying, wow, another girly, feel good puff-piece to make women feel good about themselves when they're not feeling so hot. And to that I say: simply moronic. Social media is statistically shown to increase depression in users across the board, and it doesn't only apply to women. However...women are nothing if not notorious for comparing ourselves to others every second of every day, and I'd like to put out a piece that in some way could change that thought process. I want everyone to know, and I mean everyone, that what you see is not real. What people put out there is not organic; the backstory to the photo is not always the dream scenario once the night ends; and sometimes, it's just as simple as the things they flaunt the most about their lives are the very things that make them sad to wake up in the morning.
So, readers: watch your "Gilmore Girls", eat your Haagen Dasz and sweat while carrying your new ottoman up your three-floor walk up, because you never know when you're going to miss the days you're wishing away now. I'm lucky that I've come to a place that when I post something, it has a happy backstory, and it took me a long time to find that peace. So, scroll however you want, but know that the picture you're comparing your life to might have a heck of a fiery backstory that you know nothing about, and I sure wouldn't want to be romanticizing and malenting over the lack of a life that I have no knowledge of in the first place.
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