You're Not Wrong

The three most gracious words I ever heard

One of the downsides of working at home and being alone most of the day is that I have ample time to spend on social media.

I have legitimate reasons for being on Instagram and Facebook—I use it to share my work with the world and also to collaborate with and learn from all the wildly creative people out there.

But I also use it to give my brain a break when I just need a minute.

And to keep me company when I’m eating my lunch.

And to protect me from complete and utter boredom at red lights.

And to give myself a hit of dopamine when I’m feeling a little low.

I have been seeing a lot of research lately about how children and teenagers shouldn’t have access to social media. Experts say that they aren’t developmentally able to handle the pressures that come with it, or to distinguish reality from the filtered lenses of life that it portrays.

But I’m beginning to wonder if any of us are really, truly equipped to deal with social media. I mean, I’m thirty-one years old and I still:

• Compare myself to the people I follow

• Feel unworthy and down after spending too much time scrolling

• Worry about my online presence, while sometimes neglecting the people and roles (like laundry folding) here in my physical presence

This weekend, I was talking to my sister-in-law about things like perfectly-curated Instagram profiles (you know, the ones where all the squares are stacked just-right?), homesteading moms who take pictures in gorgeous dresses with chickens, and high-powered women who have tens of thousands of followers and another book coming out this fall.

“It’s hard,” we agreed, “to see all that, and to not feel like we should be more. Or to not feel like we should be different.”

Of course, the temptation to compare ourselves to others isn’t a new one. Long before the advent of social media, I was still falling prey to an inner dialogue that said, “You are different, and therefore you are weird, faulty, or wrong.”