First off, I
want to start by saying that this past February marked 5 years of doing this
blog! When I made my first post back in February of 2015, I had no idea how
crucial this blog would be to my growth and development as a writer and a
person. I have learned a lot about myself through my reflective writing, and I
am glad to be able to share it with you all. If you’ve ever reached out to me
to tell me how much my writing has impacted you, know that that means more to
me than I could possibly put into words. Thank you for sticking with me through
the years.
Now, let’s get
down to business.
Social media
is a blessing and a curse. I love being able to keep up with my friends’ lives
and stay in touch with those who no longer live near me. I enjoy sharing my
life with people through pictures and posts. However, it’s very easy to fall
into the comparison trap that social media often instigates. It can be a really
unhealthy addiction and a hard one to break.
This year
for Lent, I gave up Facebook and Instagram. For me, those two social media
platforms in particular do more harm than good. I would spend hours every day,
aimlessly scrolling through them, seeing pictures of everyone else’s seemingly
perfect lives and envying them greatly. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t true,
that they didn’t have perfect lives; this was just the side they chose to
portray to the world. But when you’re in a melancholy state of mind, it’s easy
to fall into that trap, and you begin to feel useless, like a failure.
Since I
spent hours every day scrolling through each of these apps, I figured I would go
through intense withdrawals. The night before Lent began, I laid in bed an
anxious mess, rapidly scrolling through the apps in one last frantic attempt to
take in as much as I could before I had to give them up. Looking back, I see
how ridiculous I must have looked, but in that moment, I was about to give up
something that I relied heavily on, my crutch.
However,
after a couple of days, I almost completely forgot about Facebook and
Instagram. I had deleted the apps from my phone, so I wasn’t receiving notifications.
It was like they had been erased from my brain. Sure, every once in a while
someone would say to me, “Did you see what so-and-so posted on Facebook?” and I
would have to remind them of my hiatus. But overall, I felt liberated and free.
It gave me a lot of time to reflect on why I had felt so attached to them in
the first place.
Social media
can be very deceiving. All too often, people post only what they want others to
see. They don’t show their cluttered living room, messy morning hair, or the
secrets behind their smile. Yes, it’s true that it’s more fun to share the good
parts of our lives, but that leaves our followers with only half of the story,
the seemingly perfect half.
I’m not
claiming to be exempt from this. In fact, I definitely do it too. If you scroll
through my Instagram, you’ll probably see a happy girl who smiles all the time.
I hate to break it to you, but that’s just not true. No one smiles all the
time; everyone has moments of sadness, but it’s not always easy to open up and
talk about the tough times.
But how do
you portray these hardships in a pretty photo? The simple truth is that you
can’t. In order to share our whole selves with the world, we might have to post
about the things that are hard to talk about: depression, anxiety, grief,
stress, a disorganized life. I know it’s so much easier to share our triumphs
with our followers, but if we share our hardships too, it opens up the door for
others to do the same. If there’s anything I’ve learned from writing this blog
for the past five years, it’s that people find comfort in hearing that other
people are struggling just like they are.
Now, don’t
hear what I’m not saying. I’m not asking you to post about your struggles every
day, week, or even month. But every once in a while, take the time to talk
about the things in your life that aren’t necessarily going as you planned.
Perhaps someone else is going through the same thing, and you can unite
together in your struggles, just as humans were designed to do.
