Healthy Approach to Social Media In Today's World - Step 5

Practical advice on how to not get overwhelmed and avoid comparison with others in social media dominated world.

Those posts are fragments from my book “Short Practical Guide to Mental Health“, therefore they're, exceptionally, behind the paywall. You can purchase the book here.

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

“If you want to keep getting what you’re getting, keep doing what you’re doing” - Les Brown

When scrolling through social media, remember the number of things behind the final photo of that perfect looking, ridiculously jacked fitness influencer:

1. He's got extremely rare, elite genes.

2. He has been working out for years.

3. He's taking steroids.

4. He has the entire staff, going from dietician to photographer, that is there only to make him look as good as possible

5. The photo was taken on a pump, in his peak form, and after a month-long period of cutting (yes, they are making photoshoots then and posting for the whole rest of a year).

6. The photo was taken by a professional in a professional studio and most likely retouched.

7. And finally - how he looks in this photo directly reflects his future income.

It may sound cheesy, but before you compare yourself to someone else and feel bad after seeing a person your age achieve spectacular things, keep in mind that everyone's starting point is different. There are millions of factors, some of which we have no influence over, that define our position in life. Few things are purely black and white. The famous footballer would never have reached his current status if his dad had introduced him to a sport he had no aptitude for as a child, if they had gone out one night and suffered an injury, or if the soccer field had been a bit too distant from their home. And that’s only a few factors. The saying to not compare yourself seems obvious, but delving deeper reveals the vast number of variables that can influence your life trajectory.

There's an event and there's a process; the process is running a few kilometers a day for years, the event is winning a marathon. The process is coding for 6 hours a day, making dozens of projects that fail, the event is getting hired by a big, prestigious tech company. 

Guess which one social media showcases.

Does that mean you should feel bad because you don't have such an exhausting background? No, that means you should feel good because the social media post is the culmination of an event, and the process is also available to you. 

You may be in a stage of process and comparing yourself to event people. In fact, you might excel in the process compared to those you're measuring yourself against. Nevertheless, focusing solely on the outcome is simply unfair.

What to do with social media, then?