Picture this. It’s a photo of me smiling, wearing a brand new fitted black dress that I had recently purchased. My friends surround me and I’m glowing, perceptually as happy as can be. However, the truth is I had spent the past few hours crying alone in my room, puffy-eyed and sniffly. Though as you swipe through my Instagram dump, it looks like I’m having the time of my life, when in reality, I’ve never felt emptier.
As I scroll through my social media, I notice more pictures of me with a picture-perfect smile despite feeling like I’d been run over by a truck in the moment. The truth was, social media for me wasn’t just a place to update my friends about my life. It was a way for me to control people’s perceptions of me. In other words, so many photos were simply a facade.
It’s a trend you may notice on accounts other than your own, too: celebrities winning awards at beautiful galas, an old classmate going on a luxurious vacation, or your cousin graduating grad school at the top of their class. People showing the highlights of their life isn’t new. I often love sharing all of my wins with friends and family. However, only seeing the glorified positives can mess with our own discernments on what success means or what being happy is.
I used to find myself scrolling through Instagram constantly comparing my life to others. It seemed like everyone was having so much fun, experiencing grandeur events or achieving accomplishments I could only dream of reaching. With each scroll, I felt deeply dissatisfied with my life, and craved the glamour that was found on every post.
Yet when I stepped back and acknowledged my own posting routine, I noticed that I, too, purposefully chose the picture of me smiling brightly rather than the one with concern on my face. Or the picture that showed more of the toneness of my body rather than the one where I sit slack. Just like I can pick and choose the sides of me that I show, so can others on the internet.Â
Slowly and over time, I’ve come to realize that social media is not an accurate perception of a person’s real life. It can be fun to pick and choose our best features to be out on display, but it doesn’t represent any of the challenges it takes to get there. I work hard to limit comparison, but it’s not fool-proof. It is important to remember that your life, no matter how grand it is, is worthy of being documented and shared. All of your wins deserve to be celebrated. People’s perceptions of you don’t define you, you have the chance to define yourself.