See the girl in the photo above? The girl who’s laughing, looking super happy, and is enjoying a long weekend at a vineyard with her best friend? It looks like she’s living her best life after college, right?
Well, let me let you in on a little secret.
The same girl who is pictured laughing in this photo on a beautiful Saturday is also the same girl who found her soup getting saltier from the tears flowing like rivers down her cheeks on a cold Sunday night after her anxiety about everything had built up to the rim and finally overflowed.
I posted a photo very similar to this one yesterday on my personal Instagram account mostly because I liked the photo. But, it got me thinking: if only people really knew what today had been like.
So, here I am writing this blog post.
Instagram has been described hundreds of times as a highlight reel. It’s where people put their best foot forward. We post pictures where we look our best, happy selves. And that’s great. We should celebrate our wins in life, our happy moments. But I think it’s important to remind ourselves that while hopefully these happy moments encompass most of our lives, there are moments of extreme sadness and anger and loneliness and fear that we all go through at some point.
We go through it, but we never post about it. And why not?
I think as human beings we fear showing each other our weaknesses and our vulnerabilities; it’s something instinctual and biological, but over time, it’s become something social. We want to make it look like we have the perfect lives because if we appear happy and outgoing and fun all the time, people will think more highly of us and like us. We think, Well, no one would like a person who shares that they’re miserable all the time, so we post only the best sides of ourselves.
And I don’t think it’s a secret that no one is perfect, and no one is 100% happy all the time. But if you have ever scrolled through Instagram, I’m sure you’ve had this thought pop into your head on multiple occasions: They seem like they have it all together, like they’re truly happy.
Then the little anxiety monster and the green monster of jealousy team up to wreak havoc on your poor brain.
Here’s the thing: you can’t possibly know what’s going on in someone’s life based on a single happy photo they post one day. What you’re seeing in that small square is a mere snippet of their life, and most likely their entire day. It’s not who they are 100% of the time, and it’s not what they do 100% of the time. It is crucial to remember this if you feel yourself tempted to play another dangerous round of the comparison game.
I also think there’s no better way to build relationships with people than to be honest about how you’re feeling. And for me, I’m not able to verbally express how I feel to others (something I am working on). But, I can write. I can write it in a blog post, type it into an Instagram caption, or even post to my Instagram story. And what I’ve learned over the past year or so from writing on my blog about how I really feel, despite the photos I may post, is that so many others can relate to the so-called “ugly” and “bad” sides of you, and not just the “good.” The amount of people that I have privately reach out to me to tell me about their similar experiences is astounding.
So, when I think about the idea that more people will like or relate to us if we post the best versions of ourselves online, I ultimately think it’s silly. We are humans, not robots, and humans relate to humans. We have this incredible range of emotions we can experience with beautiful mosaics of different personality types. There are no “good, bad, and ugly” sides of humans; all of those sides are what make us beautifully human.
I’m not going to say, “We should all post about our difficulties all the time for everyone to see.” That’s daunting for most people. But, if you catch yourself playing the comparison game again, just remind yourself that this photo is one small blip in the day of that specific human being. You don’t know what went on the other hours of their day, so don’t think for a second that their life is more perfect than yours. We all have our moments, and I think that’s an important reminder. Take me, for example. I am a girl who loves to laugh and drink wine with her best friend at a vineyard and to post about it. But I am also a girl who cries into bowls of soups on anxiety-ridden days. And I think it’s important you all know that–even if I’m smiling in my photo.
So, it’s OK to post cute, happy photos of ourselves; it’s OK to like other people’s cute, happy photos. But, it’s not OK to compare ourselves to others based on a single photo. Always remember that behind every Instagram smile is a secret that you don’t know. So be kind to others online, but also be kind to yourself when online. And it never hurts anyone to be candid about our lives on the internet, either. If anything, you could be helping someone without even knowing it just by sharing the hardest parts of your life with the world, by showing others that your life isn’t perfect, and that is OK. And that, in my opinion, is truly a win.
TESS CARCALDI 