I’m not sure why I need the approval of others and in the way I live my life, but I would live my life based off social media and turns out I wasn’t living at all. Social media displays the best parts of your life, it shows all your highlights. Not until recently did it even show what it’s like on your bad days, and I don’t really see much of those posts nowadays either. I hope its because everyone is having great days (wishful thinking), but even I know we all have gut-wrenching days that no one talks about, not even me.
So I was comparing my life, successes, and failures to people I’ve never spoken to. Why? WHYYYYYY? Social media is supposed to be an outlet and for you to put content out and make you feel good, not make you hate yourself. I realized that I didn’t like myself and it was because of social media. Although, I didn’t delete social media for an extended period of time, I did so for three months and I found that I was living my best life. I woke up in a good place, did whatever the hell I wanted, every single day, without the thought of, “What if someone doesn’t approve?” Those questions about myself and others never crossed my mind. I am much more happy knowing that I don’t need highlight reels of other peoples lives to dictate my own. If you catch yourself being hard on yourself based off of someone else’s highlight reel, I suggest you step back, log out, and live your own life.
I do catch myself still scared to post certain things because I don’t have control over what others might say about it, but I am still a work in progress and I’m learning that it’s okay if I don’t make them happy, as long as I make myself happy.
The beginning of 2019 I deleted all my social media and holy f*ck it felt so amazing. I didn’t expect it to feel so refreshing but I was at a point in my life that I noticed I was using my free time in all the wrong ways. I decided one day that I would log out of everything, but that wasn’t enough. So I ended up removing all apps from my phone and it was truly life changing. I would spend hours a day scrolling through a newsfeed of people I didn’t know and comparing my life to theirs. Do you know how damaging that can be to your own life and happiness? I’ll tell you it was brutal.
Sending blessings and happiness,
Allie Grace
Living Overload 