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Recovering From Social Media Comparison Sickness

Most mornings I wake up and feel quite fine.

I’m not at all dissatisfied with my success or my appearance or my marriage, not overly concerned about my career progress or my financial stability, about the many things I may not be doing or the opportunities I don’t have.

For a few moments, I am simply awake and alive and resting in that.

Then it begins.

As most of us do, I soon find myself clicking open my virtual window to the world—and there I am immediately reminded of how far short I am falling. Bombarded relentlessly with the glorious victories of others; stories of their perfect families, details of their latest amazing speaking date, images of their globe-hopping vacations, I suddenly I begin to feel a rising unrest. My breath shortens and my chest tightens, until my peace gives way to panic and I am rightly discouraged.

This is the sickness of social media comparison, and I’m guessing you are among the afflicted. If so, you’re in good company.

Few of us are immune. It is the occupational hazard of our ever-growing connectedness with the world. The wider the reach of our interactions grows, the more plentiful the fodder for our insecurities becomes. We no longer have to compete with only the accomplishments of a few neighbors and coworkers, the successes of classmates and a handful of friends, the romantic relationships of only those we know well.

Now we get the whole wide freakin’ world to measure ourselves against—and we’re always gonna lose.

Most of us know that social media is at best a highly doctored, heavily filtered, greatly edited version of people’s lives. We know this because we work so very hard each day at managing other’s perceptions of our own. We get that it is at best an exercise in selective sharing designed for maximum appeal from a distance. 

Yet we so easily forget this as we absorb the body blows of the endless reminders of all the people who are seemingly smarter, more attractive, better connected, more talented; those making more money, doing greater things, having better sex, making more of a difference.

We see the inflated, airbrushed world passing in front of us and we take it all as gospel. Holding this distorted image of perfection up against the messy, awkward, barely held together of our tattered daily lives and it isn’t a fair fight. We cannot help but see ourselves as deficient.

It’s a fatal mistake to take all that we do not know about all those people in our path, and use it to evaluate everything we do know about ourselves—but it’s one we make over and over again. We use incomplete information about others and make an evaluation of lives that we experience intimately.

I’d tell you that part of the path to healing from social media comparison sickness is to just stop using social media. Since I know the likelihood of that, here are some helpful reminders when you’re here:

People’s lives are never as magical as they appear.
We’re all faking it and hoping others will believe us.

Everyone’s a mess.
Everyone is insecure.
We all feel like frauds.
We all feel ugly.
We all feel like we’re falling short.
Our marriages are all challenging, our kids all exhausting, our careers all frustrating, our bodies all failing.

We all worried about our waistlines and hairlines and bottom lines.

Every one of us feels like everyone else on the planet has their junk so much more together—so let’s stop making ourselves sick.

Friend, we each have a solitary sacred space we fill in this world; the families, friendships, marriages, careers, relationships that we alone occupy. The key to overcoming comparison sickness, is to treasure and revere that space. It is to covet the lives we already have.

Today may you look down at your feet and see the greener grass.
May you refuse to compete with the world today.
May you simply be awake and alive—and rest in that.

Get well soon.

 

 

 

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