The UK organisation ‘Action for Happiness’ says that one of
the biggest causes of misery in our lives is that in this ‘Internet Age,’ we
tend to compare our ‘insides’ with other’s ‘outsides.’ And I get that
completely.
For pretty much all of us, our social media profiles are built around each of us showing our best side. Not so much now because of the lockdowns of the last year, but before that, we’d see people posting how wonderful their lives are, sharing photos with us, of them out an about having a good time.
We’d see photo’s of people in wonderful locations, with a drink in hand with a big smile on our faces. We’d see videos of people dancing around swimming pools, or in a club with others. We’d see sumptuous meals in restaurants. And they’d be accompanied with posts that declared how wonderful their lives are. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to put photos up as well of me in lovely places too.
But that doesn’t show a balanced life because what many of us don’t do is to share the boring and the tedious parts of our lives in order to balance all the good times.
There is a reason for that. It’s because people are ‘winging it.’ They have the same problems and situations that you do, but many want people to think that their lives are better than they really are. And what they’re mainly doing I think, isn’t to brag about how wonderful they are, but to make them feel better about themselves. Because at the end of the day, we all think other people’s lives are better than ours.
I’ve had the opportunity to look back over my formative years recently, and when I look back, I was so unsure of myself, so lacking in self-esteem and aware of who I was.
I have a cousin who is 28 days older than me. And I can distinctly remember being a teenager and wishing I could be like him.
He was taller than me, better looking than me, had more friends than me, did more than me, was driving before me, had a van 2 years before I even passed my driving test, had his first new car on his 18th birthday, and whenever we were amongst a group of teenagers, the girls all gravitated to him. I can remember feeling on the edges of everyone having a good time.
However, given a period of time to look back, it was my lack of self-worth that made me feel bad. There was a reason he was more worldly-wise than me. He was brought up on a fairground all his life whereas I wasn’t. When I came back into the fraternity for events and parties, I was amongst people who spent all the time with each other. They had friendships that I didn’t because I wasn’t there.
Every time I came back, I felt like I had to start all over again. I would feel nervous, wondering if they remembered me. But it was my lack of self-image that made me feel that way. Each and every time I went out of my comfort zone, I was winging it!
From the inside, I would see this popular boy so close in age to me and see all these things that I didn’t have, not only materially but personally. And so I tried to be someone I’m not.
I was doing exactly what ‘Action for Happiness’ were saying, I was looking at his outside but from my inside. I didn’t know how he felt from the inside, but I was comparing him to me unfairly. And the truth is, that’s what we all do.
We’re bombarded with pictures of celebs having these great lifestyles, holidays around the world, partying at the best places, living in palatial homes and driving expensive cars, and we look at how far behind them we are.
What we don’t see is how many of them have lives that consist of being followed by photographers everywhere they go. They live their lives in a goldfish bowl.
Every little mistake they make gets amplified. Media likes to build them up to knock them down. I’m pretty sure that many of them are ‘winging it’ too.
After all, unless they were born into the culture, they’ve usually got a great learning curve to manoeuvre. And look back over the last few years and many have succumbed to drink, drugs and their mental health is affected. And when it is, it’s plastered all over the newspapers by gossip columnists for our enjoyment.
It’s human nature to look at people and think they’ve got it all together; to see people who have more than you, or you think they have more than you, and to see people having a better time than you. But each of us has our own sets of problems that go along with where we are in life.
I’m no psychologist, I’ve never taken a course or got a degree, but even I can see that we’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got.
I know personally, I’ve come through a few hardships as we all have, I’ve lost a business and everything I had, was nearly homeless with a wife and two small children and had to start from scratch again.
After years of work I had to clamber out of the pits my self-esteem had dropped to, I began to build another business and yet, in the end, I found myself floundering again and ended up leaving my wife and my kids with only a van, some disco equipment, some clothes and a little bit of money. And then I had to start all over again.
That was my fault. It was my decision. It wasn’t my wife’s doing, it wasn’t my kids’ doing. I brought pain and heartache to them all. I didn't come away scot-free though. I carried a lot of guilt around for a long time, but it’s what I had to do to find my way again. And it wasn’t easy after 27 years of marriage. But it’s what happened to me. I’ve been out of my depth, made mistakes, come unstuck and had illness since.
But also during those last 11 years, I’ve found me again. At 60, I’m feeling better about me than I have at any time in my life. So I don’t have to go online and tell people how wonderful my life is, because actually, it isn’t any better than yours, it's just how it is. I’ll have a moan and groan and talk about the crap of life. I’m just playing the hand that I’ve been dealt with. And it’s a different hand to you.
Would I swap the hand I was dealt with anyone else? Not for one minute. Because it’s in the struggles of life that I’ve found out who I am. I learnt nothing when things were going well.
Would you want to swap your life with me? I doubt it. The fact is that if I swapped my life with anyone who I thought was better off in life than me, chances are, after a month, we’d both want to swap back when we discover what each other’s life is like.
I haven’t got it all worked out. I don’t know all the answers, if fact, I doubt I know many. I’m just a normal guy.
But what I am suggesting is this. None of us knows exactly what we’re doing. None of us are cognizant of exactly how to overcome what’s going to happen to us next because it happened yet.
Every problem that comes our way will test us. Sometimes we’ll make mistakes as we go and sometimes, often more by luck than judgement, the solution will be easy to find.
But I truly believe that the end of the day, you, I and all those people we see having a great time on social media and in the newspapers and magazines are all feeling our way along this road of life.
I don’t think any of us needs to compare ourselves with anyone else because at the end of the day...
We’re all just winging it!
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