Social media has done so many incredible things for our society. It has opened up communication, brought awareness to more amazing people, and has made our society more connected. Social media can also be an extremely useful tool for promoting yourself or launching your dreams. We also get a closer look at all our favorite people. But is that neccessarily a good thing? It is great to follow those we admire. But you shouldn’t want someone else’s life.
In my opinion, the most harmful aspect of social media is the unprecedented and unfiltered access. We get a close look at the day to day lives of all of our favorite celebrities, athletes, and friends. Seeing all the cool things they are doing. This starts to shift our focus towards what we don’t have or what we are missing out on. We lose all sense of gratitude and appreciation when we do this. This is just one of the reasons why you shouldn’t want someone else’s life.
While this was never the intention of social media, the constant access has created envy and jealousy inside of many people. We look at somebody’s Instagram profile and we immediately begin to desire what they have and the life they live. We start to think about how boring and plain our life feels. This type of thinking hurts our self-image and we start to compare ourselves to our friends, or celebrities.
Coveting others and the things they posses is a punch in the face to our happiness. ‘Only if I had their life, I could be so much happier.’ These are toxic thoughts that create envy towards others, and dissatisfaction toward ourselves.
What we forget is that Instagram is just everyone’s highlight reel. People only post what they want others to see. They want to make it seem like their life is incredible. We don’t see all the other 32 selfies that were not good enough. Only the absolute best selfies. We don’t see that the guy who had an amazing dunk, also had 9 turnovers. Maybe his dunk was his only basket of the game. We also only see the most fun and exciting pictures from vacations. We don’t see the stressful moments or the boring moments in the plane or car. Only the best of the best make it to social media. People always want to show themselves in the best light possible.
It is imperative to remember that you probably aren’t posting all the great things in your life. If you had snapshots of all your best moments, your Instagram would be just as spectacular. You just don’t have a personal photographer.
Perhaps the biggest reason why you shouldn’t want someone else’s life – Celebrities and people with large following don’t always post what they want. Many of them post what they know what will get them the most attention or engagement. They have to post their best moments because that is what want other people want to see. As a celebrity, you have to maintain this image of superiority. They want to be perceived as the person with an amazing life. They take pride in being someone everyone wishes they could be. Posting everyday moments will make them seem normal, but they don’t want to be normal. They want to create a feeling of prestige. Like they have it better than others.
Without understanding this, you can be fooled into thinking you are inferior. You have to take a closer look at things. A celebrity may post their exotic vacation, or their private workout, or their luxurious bedroom. But they are human just like the rest of us. They have insecurities, stressful days, relationship problems, feelings of unhappiness just like everyone else. If you spent a couple of days with them you would probably realize their life isn’t so amazing after all. Your infatuation would decline and you would see them just like you would any other person.
Taking a closer look allows us to see both sides. Your life may not be the most exciting, but it is YOUR life. There is no life better than the one you are currently living. If you want someone else has you should also want their problems. Few people think like this, yet it is the reality. Be careful what you wish for.
We fail to see both sides in the way see our parents growing up. Maybe we go to a friends house and their parents seem to give them everything. They have a TV in their room, they get to eat ice cream after 10 PM, they get to go hangout with their friends whenever they want. This makes us start to think about how strict and unfair our parents are. We begin to resent them a little bit. Then, we go to a different friends house. This friends parents give their kid nothing. They watch his every move, cut off his freedom, and give him nothing special. These parents makes our parents look amazing. We become grateful that we don’t have such strict parents.
Everything has its drawbacks. The celebrity lifestyle may seem great from a distance, but once we get up close to it we realize we want nothing to do with it. Just like how the more relaxed parents seemed great compared to our parents. But then we saw the strict parents which helped us realize our parents are not so bad. Nothing is ever as good as it seems. That’s why you shouldn’t want someone else’s life.
The Rolling J / Jonathan McClure
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