Sometimes I wonder if we’re really better off in an internet era. I do a lot of life comparison. I feel a lot of envy. I find my confidence about every part of my life shaken on a weekly basis. Am I really happy? Am I imagining I’m happy? Are all these other people who are doing XYZ doing it “better”? I feel like once a week I’m telling myself, “Look, it MUST be possible to have it all, all at once, I see it constantly on the internet.” I think the biggest issue with living in a world where we can peek in on the lives of thousands of strangers, is that for the most part, it’s all real. There are people living big, fabulous lives out there, in the real world. They aren’t bankrolled by MTV. They aren’t surrounded by professionally designed sets or wearing clothes that were meticulously picked out by costume departments. They’re real people. Living real lives. And sometimes that makes me really depressed.
It’s hard to remind ourselves that what we get from someone’s blog or twitter or flickr page isn’t the whole picture of their life. It’s only the part they want us to see. Everything is edited. Everything is staged. No one is going to take photos for a home tour when their house is a wreck. No one is going to show you their clogged sink drain or the sweatpants and top knot they rocked at a recent grocery store trip (Hi! That chick you saw yesterday was me! I hate real pants sometimes!) And the rational part of my brain understands this. I get that our online lives are not our “Real” lives, I understand that for every photo or story about a wonderfully romantic partner or impossibly smart child, there are tantrums and fights about who took the garbage out last. I understand that we’re never going to see the whole story, but sometimes I still wonder if we’re better off with all these pretty images of seemingly perfect lives at our finger tips.
Do the positive connections we make outweigh the negative ones? Are the recipes and dyi successes worth the frustration of reading yet another “I had a fabulous party/day/outfit/ today!” post? Do you ever find yourself a little knocked down after a few minutes of Pinterest and Instagram browsing? How do you navigate a healthy internet relationship?
I’ve unsubscribed from blogs and Twitter feeds that are too adorable. If I hate myself more than once and a while after reading someone’s blog, it’s just not worth it.
The way I keep healthy is by maintaining relationships or following things that are honest. People who are willing to admit that they are having an AWFUL parenting day or someone willing to admit that they are feeling angry for no reason. I mean, it’s still sort of staged even on that level, but still. I can feel like they are real humans and can quit getting mad at myself that I’m not crafty, or for still wrestling with memories from the past, or that I can’t get past my own body or the price tag for fancy lingerie when I’m staring holes through perfect, alien super models. It’s okay.
We’re all here to enjoy being human, not to be miserable. Maybe just skip those people in your RSS feed for a while, or write down the usernames/TV shows, etc. and see what happens. You might feel better and you can always come back to them later!
I look at the things like the Traveling Red Dress and how that brought so many different people together and that makes me think the negative is outweighed by the positive. I also believe that if we didn’t have the inter Internet Perfection to help us bring ourselves down, we would find something else. We seem to have this sad need to compare ourselves to others and find us lacking.
Reading blogs is like looking at glossy magazines and I have to remind myself of their shiny quality and that at the end of the day, nothing is that perfect. The internet has given me some amazing and brilliant friends and for me, that’s worth it. I just have to keep letting myself know that it’s not all real, that people have problems and dirty dishes and laundry piles just like I do.
This is exactly what I’ve been feeling lately, and spot-on as to why I’ve been a little quieter around the Internet. I’m trying to have a healthier balance of my life and the Internet.
It’s why I’m private on Twitter again, and I go through friend/follower purges every month or so. It’s tricky, for sure. I can’t back away from it fully though, because I met people like you through the Internet. <3
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