Sometimes I think Instagram has a way of making you question your entire life in less than five minutes.
You can open the app just to check one notification, and before you know it, you've watched someone announce their engagement, someone else post pictures from a weekend getaway, another person celebrate a new job, and someone you haven't spoken to since high school share pictures of their brand-new house. Suddenly, you're sitting there wondering what you've been doing with your life.
And the funny thing is, you weren't even having a bad day before you opened the app.
You were perfectly fine. Maybe you were sitting on your bed, watching television, drinking something, or taking a break after a long day. Nothing was necessarily wrong. Then you started scrolling, and somehow your ordinary Tuesday afternoon began to feel like evidence that you weren't doing enough.
I've had this happen more times than I'd like to admit.
I'll scroll through Instagram and see people I grew up with graduating, getting married, traveling, starting careers, moving into apartments, celebrating anniversaries, and experiencing all these exciting milestones. Someone is posting pictures from a concert. Someone else is sharing a surprise birthday party. Another person announces they've been accepted into a graduate program. And there I am, looking at it all on my phone, wondering when my life is going to start looking that exciting.
It's not that I'm unhappy for them. I'm genuinely not.
I love seeing people I know accomplish things. I want my friends to find happiness. I want them to experience love, success, adventure, and everything they've been working toward. I want to celebrate their accomplishments and be excited when good things happen to them.
But sometimes, after I've liked the pictures, watched the stories, and sent my congratulations, I find myself comparing their lives to mine.
And that's where things get complicated.
Because suddenly, someone else's good news becomes a reminder of something I haven't experienced yet. Someone else's engagement makes me think about being single. Someone else's graduation makes me question whether I'm doing enough with my career. Someone else's vacation makes me wonder why I haven't traveled more. Someone else's exciting weekend makes my perfectly ordinary weekend seem a little disappointing.
It's almost like I'm keeping score without realizing it.
And the worst part is that I know better.
I know social media isn't real life. I know people aren't posting every disagreement, disappointing day, unexpected expense, or moment when they feel completely lost. I know that a picture from a beautiful vacation doesn't show the months someone spent saving money for the trip. An engagement announcement doesn't show every difficult conversation that happened before it. A new job announcement doesn't show all the uncertainty that came before the offer.
I know all of that.
But knowing something and actually remembering it when you're comparing yourself to someone else are two completely different things.
I think one of the biggest problems with social media is that it gives us access to everyone else's milestones without giving us the full context of their lives. We see the announcement, not the waiting. We see the celebration, not the uncertainty. We see the finished product, not all the ordinary days that happened before it.
And because we're only seeing these little pieces, it's easy to start believing that everyone else is constantly experiencing something exciting.
Meanwhile, we're comparing their highlight reels to our everyday lives.
We're comparing the pictures they chose to share with the parts of our lives that don't necessarily make for interesting pictures. The laundry is waiting to be folded. The errands we keep putting off. The quiet weekends. The workdays that feel exactly like the ones before them. The nights when we don't have plans and aren't entirely sure whether we want to make any.
And somehow, those ordinary moments start feeling like we're doing something wrong.
I've caught myself wondering if I'm wasting my twenties because I don't have enough exciting pictures to show for them. Am I going out enough? Am I meeting enough people? Am I trying enough new things? Should I be traveling more? Should I be doing something different with my career? Should I be making more memories?
It's exhausting when you really think about it.
At some point, scrolling through an app that was supposed to help me keep up with people started making me feel like I wasn't keeping up with life itself.
And I don't want to keep carrying that feeling around.
I also think there's something particularly strange about being in your twenties and watching everyone move through life at different speeds. Some people seem to know exactly what they want. Some are getting married and starting families. Some are building careers, moving to new cities, and figuring out what independence looks like. Others are still in school, changing directions, living at home, working jobs they aren't sure they want, or trying to figure out what comes next.
And then there are people like me who sometimes feel like they're somewhere in the middle of all of it.
Not necessarily unhappy. Not necessarily lost. Just unsure.
I think we underestimate how much pressure comes from watching people our own age reach different milestones. When you're younger, it can feel like everyone is on a relatively similar path. You're in school together, graduating around the same time, and experiencing many of the same things. But as you get older, those paths begin to separate.
One friend might be planning a wedding while another is applying for their first full-time job. Someone might be buying a house while someone else is trying to decide what they want to study. Someone might be traveling the world while another person is perfectly happy staying close to home.
And suddenly, there's no universal timeline to compare yourself to.
At least, there shouldn't be.
But it's hard not to create one when you're constantly seeing what everyone else is doing.
I think I've spent too much time treating other people's lives like a measuring stick for my own. I've looked at someone else's accomplishments and wondered whether I should be further along. I've seen people experience things I've wanted for myself and wondered what I'm doing wrong.
But what if I'm not doing anything wrong?
What if my life just looks different?
I have to remind myself that someone else's timeline doesn't determine what mine should look like. Someone getting engaged doesn't mean I'm behind because I'm single. Someone graduating doesn't mean I haven't made progress simply because my path looks different. Someone moving into a beautiful new apartment doesn't mean I should be embarrassed about where I currently live.
There isn't one correct way to spend your twenties.
And I think that's something I need to remember more often.
Another thing I've noticed is how easy it is to start living for the possibility of posting about something instead of enjoying the experience itself. You go somewhere and immediately think about taking pictures. You do something exciting and wonder what caption would go with it. You have a good day and feel like you need to document it so that other people can see that you're having a good day, too.
I've definitely caught myself thinking about how something will look in a picture before I've even had the chance to enjoy it.
And that makes me wonder how much of my life I'm actually experiencing versus how much I'm thinking about how it might appear to someone else.
I don't want every good thing that happens to me to become something I feel obligated to share. I don't want to feel like a weekend wasn't exciting enough because I didn't take pictures. I don't want to believe that a memory matters less because nobody else knows it happened.
Some of my favorite moments probably wouldn't look particularly interesting on Instagram.
They might be conversations that went on longer than expected. A random afternoon spent laughing with someone. A really good meal. A quiet night when I finally felt at peace with myself. A small accomplishment that nobody else knew I had been working toward.
And that's okay.
Not everything has to be photographed to count.
Not everything has to be announced to be exciting.
Not everything has to be seen by other people to be meaningful.
I want to get better at enjoying things without immediately thinking about how they compare to what someone else is doing. I want to be able to have a good day without needing proof that it was a good day. I want to make memories that belong to me, whether they end up on my Instagram story or not.
I also want to stop assuming that everyone else's life is as exciting as it looks.
Because the truth is, I have no idea what someone else's ordinary Tuesday looks like. I don't know what they're worried about when they put their phone down. I don't know what they're struggling with behind the pictures they post. I don't know whether they ever look at someone else's life and wonder if they're doing enough, too.
For all I know, someone could be looking at my life and thinking that I have something they wish they had.
And that's such a strange thought.
While I'm looking at someone else's pictures wishing I had their experiences, they might be looking at something in my life and wishing they had mine.
Maybe they're wishing they had more free time, a different kind of friendship, a quieter life, or the opportunity to pursue something I've never thought twice about.
It's possible that we're all spending so much time looking at what other people have that we're forgetting to appreciate what exists in our own lives.
I don't want to do that anymore.
I don't want to spend another year believing that everyone is living except me.
Because I am living.
Even on the days when I don't have exciting plans. Even when I'm working, running errands, staying home, or doing the same things I did yesterday. Even when I haven't reached the goals I wrote down at the beginning of the year. Even when my life doesn't look particularly interesting from the outside.
I'm still experiencing things. I'm still learning. I'm still growing. I'm still making decisions that will eventually shape the person I become.
My life isn't on pause just because I haven't reached a particular milestone.
And maybe that's what I need to remind myself the next time I find myself scrolling through Instagram and feeling like I'm falling behind.
I can be happy for someone else's engagement without turning it into a reminder that I'm single. I can celebrate someone's career accomplishment without questioning my own path. I can admire someone's vacation without deciding that my life is boring because I haven't been there.
I can let people enjoy their lives without using those moments to criticize mine.
I don't think I need to delete Instagram or pretend that social media has no place in my life. I like seeing what people are doing. I like keeping up with friends, discovering new things, finding inspiration, and occasionally getting lost in a rabbit hole of videos I definitely didn't intend to watch.
But I do think I need to be more intentional about how I use it.
If I notice myself constantly comparing, maybe I need to put my phone down. Maybe I need to spend less time watching everyone else's lives and more time participating in my own. Maybe I need to make plans, try something new, pick up a hobby, finish a project, or simply enjoy an afternoon without feeling like I'm missing out on something.
And maybe I need to remember that I don't have to turn every ordinary day into an extraordinary one.
Some days are just going to be ordinary.
Some weekends will be quiet. Some months won't come with major accomplishments. Some seasons will feel slower than others. There will be times when I look around and wonder if anything exciting is happening at all.
But that doesn't mean nothing is happening.
Sometimes growth happens quietly. Sometimes the most important things are taking place in the background, long before there's anything to announce or celebrate.
I don't want to miss those moments because I'm too busy watching everyone else's.
So maybe the next time I open Instagram and see someone celebrating a milestone, I'll let them have their moment without making it about mine. I'll double-tap the picture, send the congratulations, and genuinely be happy for them.
Then I'll put my phone down.
I'll go back to whatever I was doing. I'll work on my own goals, make my own plans, write my own stories, and find little things to look forward to.
Because everyone isn't living except me.
I'm living, too.
My life just doesn't always come with a caption, a perfectly timed photo, or an announcement that lets everyone know something exciting happened.
And maybe that's okay.
Maybe I don't need to make my life look like everyone else's to know that it's worth living.
I just need to make sure I'm actually here for it.
