“Oh my gosh! they are so perfect look at how awesome their life is.” This is a phrase I’ve caught myself saying regularly, and I know I’m not alone. Today as social media becomes a platform for people to share snip-its of their day to day lives it also leaves a lot of room for envy and want. We all know that people only post the good parts of their days so why are we still so jealous of other people's lives? 3 reasons we need to stop praising other people’s “lives”.
1. We are a society filled with want.
Our consumer driven society leads us to want the next big thing over and over again. How many of you are planning on buying the new iPhone 7 when you already have a perfectly good iPhone 6s that you got just a few months ago? Or when you go shopping you need those new shoes because the ones you bought last week were completely different (really they’re kind of the same if you think about it). You can’t take any of these things with you once you’re done on earth. While they may bring a temporary happiness in the end you’re left feeling like something’s missing and out buying the next new thing.
2. No one ever posts the bad stuff.
When you look on social media how often do you see someone post about breaking up with their significant other, having a stressful day at work, never feeling like their enough, finding out bad news from a doctor, etc? The answer is NEVER or very slimly. That’s because those moments are private and kept open to only a small group of people that they trust. No one is going to be completely vulnerable to their 1,000 followers of people that they may or may not know. They also don't want to seem like their complaining and wanting people to feel bad for them which leads to them only posting the highlights of their life. This makes your Instagram, twitter, and Facebook filled with all the awesome times in your life and from the outside it looks like you don't have a care in the world, but that’s all a lie.
3. You can only live your life.
You can't live someone else’s life or do everything that everyone else does. Instead of focusing on everyone else's highlight reel of their life try to focus on your own. When you're out at dinner put down the phone. When you get home from work talk to your family, significant other, friends and put down the phone. Don't try to capture every highlight of your life on your phone or worse be distracted by the best time of your life because of the phone. Maybe if we all spent less time on our phones we would spend more time realizing how awesome our lives are and focusing on every moment realizing how truly lucky we are.
I know this is hard. I want want want and continually look at other people's awesome lives and totally forget how rockin’ my life really is. I want to challenge anyone reading this to Be Still. Be still in perfect moments of your life and stop trying to capture them from your phone. Be still in the presence of people that you love and put down the phone to have an actual conversation. Be still and remember all that God has blessed you with in your life because if you're reading this that means you have the internet, a phone, and probably a lot of other stuff that people around the world would kill to have. So I challenge you. Be still.
