“Our vacation sucked.”
That’s not something you’re going to see on social media. Instead, you’ll see countless posts (with photos) proclaiming, “We had the most amazing vacation, we enjoyed every second of it!”
If you stop to think about it, no one ever enjoys every second of anything.
Social media is typically not the place to go when you’re trying to feel better about yourself. People tend to share only the highlights.
No one posts pictures of their kid throwing a tantrum in line for the ride at Disney.
You won’t see a photo of the argument they had with their spouse when they had to switch trains 3 times to get to their destination.
People crop out the ugly parts of their lives to show their friends. The argument still happened; they just didn’t share it with you because it was ugly.
On our recent vacation in Colorado, we were in an area with gorgeous high desert foliage. This is the photo I posted of a beautiful cactus. What this photo doesn’t show is when my son touched one of the cactus plants where it seemed like it wasn’t spiky and came away with all of his fingertips covered in hundreds of tiny, hairlike spikes.
I didn’t stop to take a photo of that moment. So I just posted the interesting picture of the cactus and the gorgeous views.
When you constantly see these idealized versions of others’ experiences, it can have a significant impact on your psychological well-being. Comparing your full reality to others’ highlight reels can make you feel inadequate. Your self-esteem suffers, and no one needs more of that!
You may worry that you’re not having the “right” kind of experiences or enjoying them enough. That will add anxiety to your life.
Seeing others’ seemingly perfect vacations can lead to FOMO. Even if it’s not people you necessarily want to spend time with, you feel slighted that you missed out.
Constant exposure to idealized experiences can skew our expectations of what a “good” vacation or life event should look like. You’re not seeing the tantrums or arguments or the fingers covered in hundreds of spikes, so you start to wonder if yours are a failure.
Before you start to slide down that comparison slope when you’re looking at social media posts, remember: Every vacation has its crappy parts. Everyone has less than perfect parts of every day!
While you don’t want to dwell on the parts that were crappy because that makes for bad memories, it’s important to appreciate the full range of your experience.
Here is your reality check. Remember that the shiny, happy people you see on social media aren’t always shiny and happy. They have their off days just like you. By keeping this in mind, you can reduce the pressure you put on yourself to have “perfect” experiences.
Reach out to me if you think you’d like some help with perspective on your own expectations of your experiences and your tendencies to compare yourself to others.
And, heck, maybe next time I will take a photo of my son’s fingers with all the spikes. (But here’s hoping he learned from his mistake and there won’t be a next time for that particular bit of excitement…)