I get it. It’s hard to like yourself sometimes. It’s hard to look at all those “perfect” people on the internet and not feel worse about yourself.

I feel that too.

But it doesn't make sense. Even though we know that what we are seeing is fake, we still convince ourselves that it is the reality.

We don’t get to see everyone’s raw moments, but that’s what we need more of.

We need to know that other people do the same dumb thing we do every day. We need to know that other people leave the house forgetting something important and have to run back inside. We need to know that other people accidentally waste an hour in bed scrolling through their phones when they have a lot to do. We need to know that other people have days when they can’t stand looking at themselves in the mirror. We need to know that other people do really weird things like write songs about making toast or talk to their cats when they’re home alone. We need to know that other people don’t know what to do with their hands when they talk to people. We need to know that other people have walked into the wrong classroom on the first day of school. We need to know that other people think about dieting and exercising every day but never seem to get around to it. We need to know that other people make full-blown Instagram posts with captions and everything but end up deleting them because they’re scared of what everyone will think. We need to know that other people say the wrong things and worry about them for the next three weeks. We need to know that other people have bad habits that they keep saying they’ll break but never do. We need to know that other people get nervous when they have to walk by large groups of people. We need to know that other people miss their turn and end up driving around for the next five minutes trying to find their way back. We need to know that other people have complete mental breakdowns over something as small as not being able to get their contacts in. We need to know that other people trip on the stairs and run into countertop corners. We need to know that other people have no idea what they’re doing but act like they do anyway.

We need to know all of these things. We need to share all of these things.

We are all just imperfect humans living imperfect lives, so why are we trying so hard to cover up the imperfection?

Being fake doesn't benefit ourselves, because it just means we're hiding our true selves from the world. Being fake sure doesn't help anyone else, either, because then we just start comparing our real selves to each other's fake selves. No one wins.

Let’s just be real, friends. Let’s love each other. Let’s make a change.

No more fake.