The Facebook Fantasy

This post has been something that I have felt for a LONG time. It is something I consciously try to remember each time I scroll through my newsfeed. It is something I like to refer to as “The Facebook Fantasy”.

I would say the majority of the people reading this post are active Facebook users. If not, I would say that you are at least active on SOME source of social media. This doesn’t have to be exclusive to Facebook. It can be relative to Instagram, Twitter, etc.. Each day we log on and see what all of our “friends” are up to! What did they eat for dinner last night? Where did they go shopping today? Who did they go shopping with? What did their kids do for fun that day? What sweet thing did their spouse do for them? Who hurt their feelings? What awesome car did they just get? We scroll and read and by golly…by the time we decide to stop- we are filled with emotions! Why doesn’t my husband ever bring me flowers to work for no reason? Why did she get a brand new car? I have been driving my run down junker for 12 years and would LOVE a nice, new car! I wish I had a good enough job to be able to afford that. That girls kids are always so perfect. They are dressed perfect, they are always smiling. I do good to get my kids in clean clothes with a comb ran through their hair, better yet the boutique clothes and the perfectly matching head attire! That girl has so many friends. Literally, in every picture there is someone else that is her “BFF”. I feel so lonely. Why do I not have any friends? What is wrong with me? Look at that perfect couple. They are always laughing and smiling. They go on the coolest vacations together and seem to never have a trouble in the world. My husband and I can’t even get along for 5 minutes, and our bank account is in the negative half the time. There is no way we would ever be able to do stuff like that. What I wouldn’t give for a perfect family like that. Her house is SO perfect. It is never messy and always decorated to the nines. My house looks like a tornado hit it 99% of the time. She is such a good Christian. She is always posting these positive Bible verses and going to all of these awesome church events. She really has it all together. Here I am falling asleep at night when I am trying to pray. I do good to read my Bible for 5 minutes each day. The jewels on my crown will be nothing compared to hers. I am such a failure.

WOW! How exhausting. But tell me. Do ANY of these sound familiar?! Ouch. It is a very hard thing to admit, but I would say that at some point~ and not necessarily EVERYTIME we scroll through…we have all felt at least some of these emotions. It is definitely not something we consciously try to do…but we certainly do it. Facebook can truly leave us wishing for what we don’t have. It can make us think we are far worse off than we really are, and that others are far better off than they really are. Nobody’s life is perfect. NOBODY. That girl who always have the coolest vacation pictures with her husband? Well, how do you know that she didn’t force each of those smiles in between arguments and hurt feelings? How do you know they didn’t max their credit cards out in order to go on that trip? They may be hitting rock bottom in debt, but boy do they show you a picture perfect life on the internet. The husband that you bicker with daily over finances may be keeping you on that budget because he knows that in the future, you WILL be able to go on those great trips, but not yet. Not until you are financially ready. You are jealous over an internet fantasy that doesn’t even exist. That new car that so and so got may be the fruit of countless hours of labor and savings so that they could afford that. It could be the result of working 2 jobs or yes…it could simply be because they have enough money to afford it, so they got it. They may not have saved one bit. You know what? That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we don’t get our own worth from the pictures that someone else shows us about their own lives. Everyone is going to put their “best” out there for you to see…for me to see. Not many are going to post that house that you can’t see the floor from all the mess or that dinner they had to throw away because it was too burnt to even give the dog. Nobody is going to talk about their marriage issues and how lonely they feel. {Grant it, there are some~and we all know who they are! But…not in general!}

One thing I have been asked recently was, “How do you keep your house so perfect?” They had looked at my blog and had seen my dining room and living room and seriously asked me that question. I almost laughed out loud. Come on now…don’t you realize that was STAGED? It is what it looks like in a perfect world…in a world set aside for my picture! Behind the photographer was a mess waiting to be put back into that room. The room is what it truly looks like without all of the disaster, but the truth is…it is rarely without the disaster!

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” We have to stop comparing ourselves. We have to stop comparing our husbands, wives, kids, friends… We have to realize that what we see is not necessarily what is reality. We never know what is going on underneath the surface or behind closed doors. Remember that we are all in the same boat. We are all living this crazy life and doing our best to survive! We all want our best to be out there for the world to see. Who wouldn’t? Truth is, all have kids that throw the most awful fits you have ever seen at times. There are times that we ALL burn dinner, have fights, feel lonely, feel inadequate, wish for more. THAT is reality. Let’s remember that the next time we go scrolling.

“Let everyone be sure to do his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work done well and won’t need to compare himself with someone else.” (Galatians 6:4 LB)

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Last Updated on August 29, 2015