By Latoya Hammond
Have you ever found yourself being affected by images and stories of other people’s lives on social media? If so, then girl, I GOTT U!
Listen up, I am all into the social media world with its fancy images; perfectly filtered photos; and precision organization, but if you are not careful, it can have you reaching to obtain this perfect persona that quite frankly you were never meant to obtain. Now do not get me wrong, I look at Pinterest almost daily and I have created boards. I am drawn to pins on organizing; foodie pins; mommy pins; and fashion pins. It really was the organization and home pins that began to take a toll on my self-esteem. Here were these picture-perfect closets; cabinets; command stations; and office spaces that I desired to have but when I went to create mine. . . yea, not so much Pinterest worthy. I began to slip into the trap of comparison.
Comparison can cause you to believe that you are less than or not as worthy. And if you are feeding yourself these images day in and day out, you run the very real risk of believing who you are not based on who someone else is. Instead of appreciating what was awesome about me and what I had accomplished in my efforts to organize, I felt like I did not measure up. You may not think it can affect you emotionally or mentally, but it can. Especially when you are looking at this unobtainable, staged picture of perfection day in and day out. One day on this journey of growing and maturing, I was trying to recreate something I saw on Pinterest and it dawned on me. I was like, “Toya, do you really think whoever posted this well organized and stylish closet...that it looks that way every day??? Don’t you think they have to use those items? What you’re looking at here is the money shot! The highlight picture. No one is really posting what’s going on behind the scenes or what it looks like when real life is taking place.”
If you have found yourself experiencing this then let me just say to you, stop beating yourself up because life does not look picture-perfect every day. Your need for life to look Pinterest perfect is robbing you of the joy and peace of living. I thought to myself, “Do you really think people are buying a second set of items to use so that their finished project stays Pinterest picture perfect? I highly doubt it and even if they are...who cares.”
This not only applies to Pinterest. This could apply to other social media platforms. YOU know the ones! It could even apply in your real world experiences. You were created as a unique individual and, if no one has told you, let me be the first to say that no one compares to you!