“She looks so happy, she has made it in life, she is wearing designer clothes, she looks perfect” all these are some thoughts that run in our heads when seeing other people on social media portraying their best lives and we envy them by doing exactly what they are doing. But we forget to question what happens behind the closed doors because the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. I can confidently tell that the first thing that most of the people, including myself, do in the morning when they get up is going through their social media platforms to check what other people have been up to and this to some extent becomes an addiction because we want to know what everyone else is doing with their life.

Last week in my school was Mental health awareness week and one of the themes that was talked about was the correlation between social media and mental health, hence the motivation behind this post. The main point that was brought up so many times was the term “comparison”. We tend to compare what we are going through in our lives with what we see out there, but the thing is no one on social media is going to show you when they are sad, miserable instead they will show you when everything is all right when they are happy. Some people have made it in life because they work hard every day for it and meet with challenges along the way, but they never stop, and they’ll never show you when they are struggling. The issue begins when we see them prospering on social media and enjoying the fruits of their hands we suddenly want to be like them, but we ignore the hard work behind the glory.

The issue starts when social media platforms become the center of our attention, thus leading to addiction and start comparing ourselves to other people and sometimes we get into depression by questioning why aren’t I like them? Or you start questioning on your self-worth about why you are not there yet, and this is where your self-esteem gets affected. For instance, there is a girl that went bankrupt because of taking loans to go on various vacations for her to show the world what everyone else is doing because what she sees on social media is that everyone Is going on vacations, having fun and she felt left out. Later, she got depressed because she was unable to settle her loans. The point is she was comparing her life to what she was seeing out there and she felt like “what am I doing with my life?” The comparison can be so harmful to a person because you will see everyone progressing and you are not going anywhere, this will make one question their journey. But this is the time when you need to pause and do a self-evaluation as an individual. Furthermore, we need to put in mind that we all have different journeys, and every flower blooms at a different pace. Everyone has their time to shine, just follow your path and focus on what you like. Appreciate what you have, appreciate the people around you and trust the process.

Sending sunshine your way,