“Every minute you spend wishing you had someone else’s life is a minute spent wasting yours!!”

I was just casually scrolling my Instagram feed the other day and when I finally put my phone down after mindlessly wasting half an hour peeping into lives of others; some known, some complete strangers, I was not only feeling guilty but feeling inadequate too!! Guilt obviously was out of realization of wasting time with my phone when I actually had many tasks to complete, has I guess become new normal for most of us. But the feeling of inadequacy is also creeping in our lives through the social media. Let’s try to understand what this inadequacy is all about?

Well, when we scroll through social media posts, reels, we mostly see someone who is happier, healthier, more successful, more beautiful, more connected than what we feel we are. And then we slip into the comparison trap where we don’t just compare ourselves but also our relationships to those, we see on the screen. Questions like “Why doesn’t my home look like that?”, “Why can’t I manage things like she does?”, “Why doesn’t my partner do things like that?” make us anxious. Comparison is a normal psychological phenomenon. We often use people as reference points to evaluate ourselves. Comparison can help us to understand ourselves better, to set goals and progress in life. But this comparison becomes unhealthy when we start judging our worth, happiness, and our relationships. And social media makes this comparison inevitable as we have a constant access to the highlighted aspects of others’ lives.

Actually, the comparison is unfair because people mostly share their happy moments, achievements, vacations and not their ordinary days, failures and struggles. This creates an illusion that everyone is doing better than me. When we feel envious after seeing international holiday trip photographs of someone we know, we forget to think about the arguments, exhaustion, financial stress that person may have faced while planning this trip. Similarly, the constant affection, scripted romantic gestures, picture-perfect family moments, expensive gifts seem so real that we judge our partners based on that. But these highlight reels don’t show the misunderstandings, difficult conversations, individual struggles, stress to maintain the lovey-dovey image. So, judging a relationship based on a photo or a reel and its perfect caption is like judging the book just by viewing its cover.

As humans, we usually compare ourselves with someone we perceive as doing better. Sometimes, this comparison can motivate us to do better but mostly it triggers inadequacy, envy or discouragement. When we see a success story posted by someone, we feel good for them but at the same time our thoughts can slip into a critical loop: “Why am I not doing great?”, “Am I falling behind in life?”, “Am I not capable enough to succeed?”, “Something is wrong with me!!” This is where we need to pause and restructure our thoughts. The problem is not the photo/reel but the meaning we give to it because we actually don’t know what happens outside that frame, it is all our imagination.

So, what is the solution then? I won’t say eliminate social media from your life completely. That is not possible as it provides not just entertainment but connection, support, education and inspiration also. Social media does not affect everyone in the same way; it can be helpful too. We just need to understand our triggers. Whenever, we fall into this comparison cycle, just pause and question our thoughts and reframe them to give a better perspective. We can follow only those accounts which motivate us to do something fruitful and mute those accounts which make us feel inadequate and miserable. We must remember that social media is not the measure of our worth, it’s just a medium to connect. Engaging in offline activities and relationships is a better way to connect with yourself and others instead of mindlessly consuming social media.

Being mindful of our own achievements in terms of education, career, relationships, money and lifestyle without attaching the pressure of strict timelines and standards is the best way to remind ourselves our life is not a measuring scale of my achievements but a journey to explore and enjoy!!

Always remember,

“Cherish who you are than just comparing your story with others because comparison steals your peace of mind by drowning in self-doubt and self-criticism!!”