I’ve always been enamored by social media. I was one of the first of my friends to get a MySpace profile. I remember finding the brightest and flashiest images to splatter all over my page. When Facebook started I couldn’t wait to be able to create a profile. I actually remember it being the first thing I did as soon as I got my college email address. Facebook documented my entire college career (or should I say party). I was one of those girls who had 50 photo albums and thousands of pictures. Once I graduated from college the Facebook posting continued but a new love affair also started. This love affair was with Instagram. Instagram took my documentation from Facebook and made it more creative, more appealing, I guess you can say prettier.

If you look at my current Instagram feed you will find pictures of beautiful sunsets, mouth watering food, and perfect yoga poses.

What you won’t find are pictures of my messy bedroom that still is unpacked, my dinner I threw together because I got home at 10pm, or me falling out of a hand stand because I can only hold it for one second or less. Yes that’s right. I still have not nailed a solid handstand away from the wall.

Why am I telling you this?

I’ve had a love hate relationship with all my social media outlets for a while. Recently I’ve been seeing so many articles that have really resonated with me in terms of Facebook or Instagram simply being the best version of everyone’s lives.  Here are a few:

We Hide Behind 140 Characters

Please Don’t Envy Me – The Facebook Status Everyone Should Read

Then Jess wrote this very honest post that was triggered from her yoga pose challenge last month.

So I decided to come clean and to get it out there.

I can get lost on social media. Scrolling through newsfeeds cumulatively probably takes up hours of my day. I sit there and see old friends traveling the world, or former co workers landing their dream job. I see beaches, adventures, smiles, and fun. We all see this because this is what social media has become. An outlet to show off our storybook of a life. The problem is, no ones life is a fairytale. No one is without bad days, or bad weeks, or bad moods.

But I still find myself scrolling my thumb thinking “I wish I was doing that.” And I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted this, or want to, but social media has invoked a quality in me that I am not welcoming of or proud of…envy.

So how do I get this under control?

I am constantly reminding myself of all of the blessings in my life. I am so grateful for the people in my life and the experiences I have had. We are all on different journeys in this life. I am a true believer that every experience you have in life, good or bad, gets you to exactly where you should be at any moment. There is no need for comparison, there is no need for judgement of others or especially of ourselves. And just because I am writing this doesn’t mean that I don’t have to work at remembering this every single day.

It’s simply the world we live in today. Almost a virtual fish bowl of sorts. Letting everyone see through to what is inside.

When things shift in our world, when photo albums become digital, when conversations with old friends become status updates, we have to shift the way we think.  We have to shift the way we approach these new forms of communication.

Can we scroll through our newsfeed and, instead of thinking ‘why not me?’ think ‘wow, we all have so many great opportunities in this life to find joy.’ Can we take it all in with a grain of salt? Remembering this is the best version of everyone’s lives and not the only version?