Social media gets me hooked.
I won’t say that I’m a chronic fan of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and their siblings that I can’t spend a day without them, but it’s suffice to say that I do check my profiles everyday. I update things regularly, and get my daily dosage of news from there as well.
But I’m not hooked to the social media platforms.
No, I’m hooked to something called comparing-my-grass-with-my-neighbour’s.
Here’s the thing. So and so has gotten a great job. Even when she said that he did overtime like crazy and that she updated his status at 10 PM, “Just leaving the office,” I envy her. She has the dream job. I don’t.
Another so and so is truly blessed with wealthy parents (who gives him all the money he wants to open his business, or an awesome spot at his parents’ company). Without needing to pour a single sweat, he is already on the path of success. There will no mortgage to be thought, no deficit of money state to be pondered for the rest of his life. Oh, life. Life, oh life.
Like, Facebook is telling me that he has an awesome job at such a young age, she has the dream job, they are successful like crazy and making tons of money. Instagram is telling me that everyone’s photography skills are much, much better than mine, and that everyone is living such better lives. Coffee. Good book. Beach. Traveling. Photos from overseas. Catching up with friends. Getting a scholarship. Getting an award. Getting published. Having the cutest dog in the world. Having the ‘awwwwww’est cat in the world.
And my profile? They look so bleak. So ordinary. In spite of my determination to live ordinary lives, it’s kind of hard when it seems that everyone is living an extraordinary one.
Of course, the catch is, seems.
He seems to live an awesome life. She seems to be successful in everything she does.
Here’s the thing: We are all comparing our backstage lives to everyone’s on-stage lives. No wonder theirs look so glorious, and ours so bleak.
Perhaps if I can just spend half the time I’ve used for seeing the neighbour’s grass to actually tending my own garden, I will be seven steps further from where I stand now.
No worries. The lesson is learned. Life is not a stage. I don’t want to merely perform on living, I want to live.
That’s what I need to remember everytime Facebook and Instagram and the next-best-social-media-platform tell me otherwise.
Photo by Jess Pac
