I think social media can be a downer ... I see people my age whose families, careers, homes ... everything ... look so much better than my situation.
But someone said we are comparing our bloopers with everyone else’s high-lights or “best-of” video.
That is part of it, but normal people also can become bullies on social media.
“I see people my age whose families, careers, homes ... everything ... look so much better than my situation.”
Do not fall for that. Ever :-). It isn’t the intention of people posting that stuff to rub things in other people’s faces. Maybe “not all”, but I’ve found people to be generally good ... they simply want to share a great experience with their friends :-).
I once posted some pics of my wife, my son, and me on vacation in the Keys. The one pic I took looked cute and I posted it. An old friend commented to me, privately, that he was jealous of me in a way and had nothing but problems (no career, felt like a failure to his family, etc).
I explained to him a period from 2009 to 2010 that was bad. I won’t bore you with details. It was hell. Everything from financial wreckage, deaths in the family, drug abuse (not me) ... it was seemingly nonstop agony for no real reason. It was a very dark, almost rock bottom time for me and my wife. I didn’t post any happy pictures back then.
During that time, I remember seeing pics of other people my age all happy and seemingly satisfied. It depressed the hell out of me. Not suicidal depression ... just a feeling of failure.
Anyway, my wife and I worked hard to claw our way back. During that aftermath, my son popped into the world :-). I did what I always do and fought our way back. I wasn’t going to fail my wife (nor was she going to fail me). There is no way in hell I was going to fail my son :-). In many ways, I feel we are better people after that experience.
Turns out that, in many instances, snapshots of, as you put it, someone’s “best of” videos are just that. Some people, for whatever reason, get to cruise through life. I can assure you that those instances are rare. Behind those smiling faces, new cars, new homes, exotic vacations, etc. are horror stories of what people had to endure to get to that point.
Anyway, I told my friend about what we went through those years ... he shared some similar stories, but was amazed what I went through since he thought I was living some kind of textbook life. It kicked his ass into gear and he finally grew some balls to start working on his own.
Life’s too damn short to waste time being envious of others ... in many instances, swapping lives would simply mean inheriting new sets of problems ... unless swapping involved Kate Upton somehow ;-).