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Last week when I was home sick, I caught up on the last few month’s of Real Simple. (I have a subscription, but they still tend to pile up on my bedside table.) January’s edition is all about balance — in all aspects of life — and as part of that, they’re using this week to “Get Real on the Internet.”
But let’s face it: Those edited, Instagram-filtered versions of lives don’t do anyone much good. They can cause gnawing feelings of inadequacy in those who read them—it’s all too easy to forget that the posters are virtually ignoring the screaming toddler and the sink-full of dirty dishes. And on the flip side, isn’t maintaining public perfection exhausting?
Really, is this a thing now? Are we really getting so stressed out by the so-called “perfect” lives of others that we have to have a dedicated week of “getting real?”
I mean, on one hand I get it. I do. I know it’s easy to sometimes feel like everyone else’s life is perfect because of what they post online, and I’m certainly guilty of falling into the trap of thinking that I’ve somehow failed:
- If my house is littered with toys even after Emma has gone to bed.
- When I buy a cake for Emma’s birthday party instead of lovingly making one.
- If my bedroom doesn’t look like the ones on design blogs.
- When dinner consists of a frozen lasagna thrown hastily into the oven, instead of one made from scratch.
- If I screw up a craft project beyond repair, or abandon it entirely.
But you know what else? Within a few minutes, I also remember what I KNOW:
- The living room can always be straightened up tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after THAT.
- Emma liked the HEB cake BETTER than an earlier one I’d made from scratch.
- 95% of the time I spend in my bedroom is when I’m dead asleep, so who really cares if it’s not perfectly styled?
- Frozen lasagna tastes just as good and is way, way easier to make.
- Um, hello, failure is an integral part of the creative process.
So complaining about people painting their lives as too idyllic? Too pretty? Too well-manicured and neatly packaged? It just seems like one giant manufactured so-called issue. At the end of the day, when you look at someone’s online life, you only see what they want you to see. Online life is edited, real life is not, and it does everyone a disservice to confuse the two.
So come on, people. Do what works for you. Be happy. Live your life. And by all means, get off the internet every once in a while.
Actually, that last one is advice I should take more often myself.
