It’s 5 am Sunday morning, and you instinctively grab your phone and start scrolling through Instagram. You see your favorite model share a photo of her time on vacation in the Maldives, and think, Wow, my life sucks. This happens to be me all the time. It seems as if I’m a robot- wake up, get ready, go to work, come home, cook dinner, and repeat. I started feeling depressed and meaningless in life because, well, I find myself boring compared to celebrities and friends on my Instagram feed. I was tired of comparing my life to everyone else’s and decided to delete Instagram and Facebook entirely. If you find yourself in the same predicament, keep reading to find out what happened after I quit social media for a week.
For once, after a long while I felt relieved. Instead of spending my morning comparing my life to others, I invested my time in bettering myself. I started practicing yoga again. This was a big one for me. Following yogis on Instagram actually discouraged me from practicing, due to not progressing as fast as I would’ve liked. But, after not comparing my progress with theirs, my love for yoga quickly reappeared. It seemed like a balancing act. With this newfound relief, some of my worries lessened and disappeared entirely. I had no one to compare myself too, and that was a beautiful thing.
Growing up I always had issues with feeling beautiful, and honestly I found social media to be toxic to me. Despite what people told me, my self-confidence was essentially non-existent. Even today I struggle, especially when it comes to taking pictures. When I Quit Social Media, I found that instead of looking in the mirror and disliking what I saw, I began to appreciate myself and love the beauty in others I didn’t see in myself. But that’s the thing, there IS beauty in me, and I started to recognize it. In doing so, my self-confidence started blossoming and friends, co-workers, and family noticed it too. One of my bosses came up to me and said, “Wow, you’re glowing. You look happier.” And I was.
Instead of staying home wishing I was out on adventures, I began appreciating the little moments. My day trips to the grocery store, and my long drives through the countryside became more enjoyable. I stopped viewing these moments as obligations and chores, and began to make the most out of them. My happier attitude also seemed to make me more approachable. I had strangers say hello, and strike up small talk with me. The little things are what made my day. A simple moment, that I usually ignored now became what I most looked forward to.
Work became more enjoyable, and overall, I stopped complaining about the things I didn’t have. Some days I would wake up and just lay in bed, fantasizing about my life if it were different. I’d often cry, because I felt miserable and unhappy. To ensure this occurred less, my fiance and I advised a plan to limit our complaining about work or our day to 15 minutes a day. That’s right. These 15 minutes could be utilized only once, and once we were done we couldn’t complain for the rest of the day. If one of us slipped the other would simply say, “You’re out of time.” This has continued to be a part of our relationship and it honestly made our worrying much less.
If your’e finding it hard to keep up with social media, try opting for a break. Whether it’s a few days or for an extended period of time, it’ll leave you feeling happier. You won’t feel the need to compete with pictures, like I did. When I feel like I’m slipping back to my old ways of comparing myself to others, I simply delete my social media app and resist the urge to re-download it. Just know you are beautiful and there’s no need to compare yourself to others.
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