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Perception isn't Reality

I know I am not the only one that is guilty of going on social media and seeing everyone posting their best lives to find myself feeling sorry for myself. I see everyone traveling to sunny beaches or out with their friends in classy outfits. Sometimes the couples photos or even fancy dessert pictures make me feel like I am missing out. Like my life is not as good because I don’t have ultra edited pictures or thousands of likes on my posts. However, that is not reality, the things on social media that we get jealous of or envy are not those people’s reality. No one wants to post the bad things, or even the subpar things in their lives. I do this too, I try to only post the best pictures or things that I know will get likes. One of my favorite features of instagram is hiding the like count. I started doing this on all of my posts and I would have to go through a lot more work to find out how many people saw it. I have been able to put my phone away and not worry about it. I also started posting pictures for myself, rather than to impress others.
The reason I share this story, which I am sure many can relate to, is to bring insight that someone is not a failure when compared to someone else. In many cases, the times people feel the most like a failure are from subjective matters. Oftentimes we perceive ourselves as failures, because we compare our successes to others. Whether it be the houses you live in, the car you drive, or the trendy diet you see everyone else on, that does not define your level of success. By comparing ourselves to others, we are not living our own life, we are putting ourselves into boxes, or lists of criteria to avoid being failures.
In truth, we are making the perception of failure worse. There is so much more freedom to being an individual and not falling into the belief that social media accurately defines success. It would be naive to base my successes off of my likes or presence on social media. While being a benefit to stay in touch, it has truly begun to alter behavior. We find joy in seeing the number of likes go up, and experience negative emotions when there are no likes. My advice to anyone in the same situation or similar is this: When given the option turn off the like count, and when that isn’t an option, choose to live in the moment, no need to post something and wait for likes. Carry on with your day, and remember, not everything you see is exactly as it appears. Just because someone looks to be living their best life on social media, does not mean that it is true, or that you are any less of a person. When we compare ourselves to a fake reality, we will never be satisfied.
I attach 2 pictures, the top right: is posed in good lighting, and on my instagram. The bottom left: is one my dad took when I was not paying attention. One is posed, and the other is reality.


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