I know I’m not the only one who, at one time or another, has refreshed their Instagram post every five seconds to decide whether or not to delete it and repost it later since it may not be getting that many likes. And before you even think about posting a picture, you have to pick a caption; if I had a dollar for every minute I spent trying to think of a clever caption, I’d have enough money to buy the whole damn company.

Oh, and how could I forget the much-dreaded process of choosing a filter? I’ve only recently come to realize how frequently I engaged with social media. Sometimes I feel as if I spend more time calculating the exact minute of the hour I should post a picture than figuring out what time I should go to sleep to get a decent amount of shut-eye.

I’d say I’ve become as sucked into social media as the majority of my fellow millennials. I used to ignore all the time I spent on apps like Facebook and Instagram, and used to even deny the fact that I found the number of followers I have as important.

More and more, people are defining themselves by what their online profiles look like. This self-judgment has become so second-nature to us because of how much emphasis society has on popularity and social media. Sometimes I’ll lay down on my bed to take a study break and realize that I’ve spent just about twenty minutes perusing SnapChat stories.

We compare our profiles to those of celebrities, such as Kylie Jenner and Selena Gomez, who both have well over one million followers. But these people, as talented and beautiful as they are naturally, have professional photographers as well as expensive editing software and high-end makeup to help them achieve the photos they desire.

Social media is dangerous in that it decreases our self-esteem because of all the comparisons we make to our fellow users. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat also prove to be stressful when it comes to how we treat and post with each other on our feeds. We might get a little jealous of that one guy who always gets a ton of comments on his posts. But as long as we feel confident about ourselves, who cares what our Instagram notifications say?

The amount of likes you get on a picture doesn’t define you. It doesn’t matter if you get zero comments or one thousand comments on a selfie; the only person you need to receive a compliment from is yourself. Why should you have to think twice about whether the Instagram Story you want to post is going to be considered “cool” or not? If it makes you happy, then you should post it.

If I’m walking through a hallway full of windows and notice a spot with really good lighting, I will definitely need to set aside a few minutes to take some pictures. In no way does this make me conceited; if I have a working camera, what does it matter if I use it to take pictures of myself? Expressing ourselves in this way should be fun and liberating. We shouldn’t be taking pictures for the approval of anybody else; we should be doing it to empower ourselves.

Bottom line: keep taking pictures and posting them as you please! Honestly, nobody-- no matter how many followers they have-- holds the power to determine how ‘flawless’ you are. There is no such thing as the perfect person, anyway; so, why should we try and obtain the impossible?