They say that comparing ourselves to others based upon social media is like comparing someone else’s highlight reel to our everyday.
If only I could get that to sink into my brain.
I’m a big fan of social media. I consider myself a very social person, but I spend most of my days at home, and even when I have the opportunity to go out and mingle, I occasionally get shy, panic, and hide under the covers of my bed. It sounds like an oxymoron – the shy social person or the socially anxious social person. Then again, I might just be a moron.
But that’s where social media comes into play. When I’m holed up inside my house and it’s bitter cold outside and I have a sick kid (or a slipped disk in my back as is currently the case,) I can go on Facebook, and I can remember that there is a whole wide world out there.
But a funny thing happens. See, I go on Facebook during my most lazy moments, and I go on there, and I see highlights of my friends’ days. And all of a sudden I don’t stack up. I would like to think that I am more self aware and savvy than to fall into the traps of comparisons, but I am not.
I look around the mess and chaos of my house; I look at the pajamas I have been wearing all day; I think of all of the crafts we could have done or all of the books we could have read or all of the sensory tables I could have made, and suddenly I don’t add up. It doesn’t matter if I have spent the day cleaning my house and being a regular old Martha Stewart. I simply cannot add up to the visions other people paint of their lives through social media.
This had been my relationship with social media for quite some time, but then a funny thing happened. I started to notice that people were doing the same mental gymnastics with me. Yes me! Imperfect, messy, chaotic, anxious, melancholic, spastic, crazy me. People were seeing crafts that I had done and were comparing themselves negatively to me. People were hearing about books I have read and were wondering why they couldn’t read as much. People were hearing about my bi-annual cleaning episodes and were thinking me incredibly productive.
And again, I started to realize just how one-sided social media is.
And the thing is that I don’t know what to do now. I find myself at a standstill. I love to post pictures of the byproducts of my 15 minutes of weekly creativity. I enjoy writing about my passions. I enjoy sharing pictures of things that I have created. And yet I don’t want to paint a false picture of myself. Because I know that the 15 minutes of creating that I did stand in stark contrast to the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of my day. I know those were my best 15 minutes. But to others out there in Facebookland, that’s not always apparent.
There’s this saying that has always haunted me. It says that we all have the same number of hours in a day and a week. Often people use this to shame others.
If I can get to the gym for an hour a day, you should be able to as well. After all, we all have the same number of hours in a week.
I always hated that saying. After all, nothing good ever comes from shaming either ourselves or others.
But then I heard another interpretation of it.
We all have the same number of hours in a week. Whenever we make a choice of what to say yes to, we have to say no to a whole host of other things.
To me, that idea is liberating.
Yes, I spend a lot of time tangled up in yarn. I spend (usually, but not lately) a decent amount of time writing. I have dance parties as often as possible with my kids. I like teaching them to make things. I like reading with them. I like talking to them.
These are the things that I am good at. They are the areas that I excel in. They are near the top of my personal constellation of skills.
But for every book I read, there is a load of laundry that isn’t done. And for every load of laundry that isn’t done, there’s a morning rush to find the clean socks or the clean uniform shirt. For every Taylor Swift dance party we have, there is 15 minutes less to prepare dinner. For every blog post, there is a room left uncleaned or a game left unplayed.
Because we all have to make choices every single day, and one of the most profound of those choices is how we spend our time.
And so next time I read about the dozens of books a friend goes through in a week or I hear about the amazing trips or the incredibly organized way she handles after school activities, I’m going to try my best to remember that that is her highlight reel. That is where she excels. I might not excel in those areas, and that is fine.
Because none of us can be it all. None of us can do everything and be everything. All we can be is good at some things, bad at some things, and plain old average at a whole slew of other things.
I wonder what would happen if each of us took every moment we spend negatively comparing ourselves to others and instead used that time to truly appreciate the gifts given to those around us. How different would our worlds look if we were able to respond in awe and gratitude rather than with shame and negative comparisons? If we saw beauty in others and we built up her rather than tore down ourselves?
I don’t know what that world would like, but I would bet it looks a whole lot better than this one we are currently residing in.