What you see on social media is not all their is to life. If you are like me, you show “real” parts of your life. While sometimes we will show the sad, ugly or tragic, mainly we are on social media to provide value, be entertained, and escape from real life. That’s if you are anything like me.
Here is an example: This photo of me above is completely real. I have this cup, which I love, I sit by my pool sometimes which is great, and this photo is not filtered. It’s real. But this is not my reality. I don’t sit by the pool all day, every day, without a care in the world. I have kids. I have a husband who works long hours. I have a dog. I have responsibilties. I live with Celiac Disease. I have had to give up working over the past few months and I deal with the stress of that. This is just a few of the details of my life you don’t see in this picture.
I like to scroll social media for entertainment, to see my friends, their kids grow, milestones, gossip and especially to check out tips and tricks for my interests. I post to provide information, share some random thoughts, to keep my viewers up to date on what I’m up to, share my articles and to keep an online presence going.
There’s many benefits to having social media accounts, but like anything else, it has it‘s downfalls. Too much information, conflicting opinions, fake news, keyboard warriors and other negative features can be enough to make you shut down your accounts. I’d like to say there’s a balance but I would be kidding myself. It’s not a balance, it’s a really a matter of your own thought process.
But I digress. I struggle like the next person. I have challenges. My life has drastically changed since the pandemic began. And every once in a while I’ll blog about it. Or post about it. But just because I don’t post constantly about this does not mean that I am not going through some shit.
Social Media, as I have come to realize, is like a fantasy world. A world where people can be a whoever they want. Look however they want. It’s kind of like that game the Sims. You create a persona, a character. You create your life. You can literally be anything. It’s an escape from reality. And while everything I post is REAL, it may be disguising reality. Sometimes it’s on purpose and other times it’s truly the viewers perception.
I wanted to write about this today because someone messaged me about how amazing my life is and how they aspire to “be like me”. I am so humbled by that but I want you to be like you. I love my life, but my life is not without extreme challenges. You may want to be like the social media me. But the everyday life me is someone you might not be able to handle.
I want you to be like you. To be the best you. The healthiest you. The happiest you. I want you to love your life, even with the obstacles. I want you to be who you want, on and off social media.
