I can still remember the day that I made my Instagram account. I was in the 8th grade and I made it on my sister's iPod. I still remember the first selfie I posted and the first filter I used. I never deleted that account in fact it's the same account I use today. Being that I've had the same Instagram for 6 years, I've managed to follow a lot of people. Right now, my 'following' count sits at a whopping 2,675 people! While a large portion of that number makes up my family, friends, people I went and go to school, church, and work with, there's also a large portion of people that, like anyone, I just follow for fun.
Recently, I've had the urge to delete not just my Instagram account, but all of my social media. While this has been an urge that I've resisted, I've managed to unfollow a significant amount of people in a very short amount of time. But over the last few weeks I found that I've been unfollowing a lot of people that have been getting engaged.
Now before you think I'm a horrible person, I just want to say that these are people that I don't know personally. Of course I'm happy for all of my friends who make the decision to spend the rest of their days with the love of their life. So no, I don't unfollow them.
Others however, I do. Whenever I see a video or Instagram post of a young couple-- not much older than me-- announcing their engagement I get almost panicky. I start feeling like somehow I'm not moving fast enough- like everyone else is reaching important milestones before I am. I even start to feel like I'll never reach these important milestones. I got this same feeling when a friend of mine bought her first house at 20 years old and when other friends show off their *new* cars that they bought with their own money.
So while I do rejoice with people I know personally, all the other announcements can at times be overwhelming. After seeing these posts, I all of a sudden get the unreasonable urge to speed up. As a student who struggles with self-deprecating thoughts daily, telling myself to speed up when I in fact am doing everything that I can to be successful, feels a lot like being at war with myself.
So instead of unhealthily comparing my life to the others around me, I do what I can and unfollow. It’s not that I hate happiness (which this admittedly sounds like) I just don’t like to be rushed.
I feel like my life is mine and the sensation of being hurried along because everyone else is doing life in a different order is not one that I enjoy. Right not, my main goal is to do my best in school and earn a degree. I shouldn’t subject myself to feeling inadequate because I haven’t been proposed to yet.
So once again, I don’t oppose the happiness of others but I do value mine.
