"Don't compare your behind the scenes to everyone else's highlight reels." - Steven Furtich
Originally, I believe this quote was meant to be much simpler than what it has turned out to be. In simpler terms and times, this just meant don't compare your life to the small fraction you see of other people's lives. Seems pretty easy to understand, right? But like so many other things and like I've written in other pieces, this quote is so much easier said than done.
With social media, this quote has become so much more complex and much more relevant. In face to face interaction, it's possible to put on a fake smile and act like your life is going great. It's possible to create a facade and appear to have it altogether. But with social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, it's not just possible to fake people out. It's easy.
The thing is no one tends to post the bad parts of their life on the internet. No one wants people to see their behind the scenes, because we all want to share our highlight reels. We all want to post the happy events. There's tons of pictures of our smiling faces with friends, pictures of our latest vacations, pictures of our school achievements. But how often do you see a post from someone who has studied their ass off for a test only to fail it? How often do you see someone make a post saying that they just don't know what their doing with their life anymore and question everything they do? While some people do share both good and bad, most of us only post our highlight reels.
Don't get me wrong, I love social media. I love posting pictures of me and my best friend or posting pictures of my dog on Instagram. I love keeping up with childhood friends, friends I haven't seen since graduation, and teachers I was close with in high school. Social media is fun, but it can also be detrimental. If you've ever had a bad day and have scrolled through your feed, you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to go through a rough patch while looking at pictures of friends who seem to be having the time of their lives. You begin to question yourself. "Why can't I be happy like her?" "Why do I keep going through hard times and no one else does?" But the truth is, we all have hard times.
We have to remember that pictures are only highlight reels. Pictures capture a split second in time. They capture what we want others to see. Personally, it's difficult for me to remind myself of that. I try not to post too much about my medical issues and my autoimmune disease because I know it makes people uncomfortable. People don't know how to respond to an eighteen year old kid talking about a disease that most people have never heard of. But because that is such a big part of my life now, I do have a lot more bad days than I probably would have if I were a perfectly healthy teenager. I have more bad days than I care to admit, but that's not the point.
The point is that we shouldn't be afraid to share our behind the scenes. I'm not saying we should all post every bad thing that happens in our day. The goal isn't to spread negativity. The goal isn't to make others feel bad because you feel bad. The goal is to be real. Our society is so focused on our appearance to others so we smile for a second to post a picture on Instagram, but in reality we are so far from smiling. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you're going to share the smiles, you shouldn't shy away from sharing the tears.
I wrote this because I know I'm not the only one who feels like this. I'm not going to stop posting about the happy parts of my life. I want to spread positivity and happiness to others, but I'm also going to unapologetically post real events. I'm going to post pictures of me in hospital gowns before and after my surgeries. It's a genuine part of my life and quite honestly, I think it needs to be captured because it reminds me on bad days that I'll make it and on good days that I've come a long way. I'm going to share my frustration of doing homework for four hours and still being nowhere close to being done. It keeps me motivated and after graduation, I think it'll be beneficial to look back and realize that every second I spent working was worth it. Those aren't the happiest parts of my life, but I'm not happy all the time and I'm not going to pretend that I am. As the great Meredith Grey once stated, "Not everyone has to be happy all the time. That's not mental health. That's crap."
Again, I'm not saying be a depressing Facebook user. I'm not saying put all of your business on the internet. Some things need to be kept private and no one wants to feel down all the time. Use social media however you want to. I just think we'd all feel so much better if we posted good and bad and collectively had the mentality of "This is life and we're all going to experience joy and pain so we might as well help each other through it by sharing the ups and the downs." After all, a wise man once said, "Life is not the mountaintops, it's the walking in between."**
** Totally song lyrics from Ben Rector's "I Like You"
