Less Facebook, More Peace?

"Comparison is an act of violence against the self." ~Iyanla Vanzant

I'm on the eternal search for peace. I want peace more than I want happiness. I seek it and according to Rumi, it seeks me. Any day now we shall find each other. 

It came to my attention that I was disturbing my own peace by compulsively checking Facebook all day long. Nowhere is the compare and despair game so strong as it is on social media. And I noticed that I usually felt worse by the end of my FB visit. More separate, more disconnected, even from myself. So instead of just decreasing my use which is probably the most logical conclusion, I decided to embark upon a little experiment in which I quit Facebook altogether, a hiatus if you will. I'm sort of an extremist that way. What's moderation? I wanted to see what would happen and how I would feel totally off of Facebook. 

At first I thought, how will I fare without all the daily updates: crossfit wods/leg day at the gym, pet videos, political viewpoints and biases, 50th consecutive baby picture, etc., etc. I wanted to be in the know, ya know? FOMO ensued.

Facebook is a place where you can instantly feel unpopular and unworthy if you accidentally equate your self-worth and general likeability with number of status likes. If I voluntarily wanted to feel like this, I'd go back to 7th grade, thankyouverymuch.  Besides it being a total timesuck, Facebook provides an excellent opportunity to draw social comparisons and even the best of us fall into the trap of comparing our friends' highlight reel to our blooper reel and as a result, feeling kinda inadequate. I've heard that comparison is the thief of joy and I think it's true. Why am I not jet-setting to a different major city every weekend--or better yet, country? Howcome I'm not getting engaged on the French Riviera? WTF? I thought I was relatively happy until I scrolled through my Facebook feed. 

What's most interesting is that the whole intent behind Facebook is to foster social connection. So the very thing it aims to facilitate is sometimes what it inhibits, by prompting some Facebookers to feel not only less connected, but more lonely, isolated, and depressed. The evolution of Facebook has gone from a basic keep-in-touch-with-friends-and-family-that-live-far-away to a site inundated with lots of personal promotion. It can be too much. 

What I felt in the moments after I clicked "deactivate my account": relief. 

See, I strongly identify with being an introvert and highly sensitive person. I need peace, quiet, and solitude to feel okay in the world. Introverts like me replenish their energy stores by being alone because being around a lot of people actually leaves me feeling depleted. I like people a lot, just in smaller doses than an extrovert, who is generally energized by people. Since Facebook is a sort of virtual crowd, I was signing off feeling totally zapped. Either that, or I was left feeling less than because of the social comparison trap. I definitely allowed it to disrupt my sense of inner peace. So I didn't really miss it while on my 4-month social media vacay. I felt relieved that I didn't have to "keep up with the joneses" and ended up doing some deep personal development work. 

The truth is that all of us, myself included, post brag-worthy pictures and statuses to protect our image of success, happiness, beauty, fitness, health, and love. I'm not saying we're not successful, happy, beautiful, fit, healthy, and in love, but it seems as though Facebook supports the illusion of life being a bed of roses all of the time and that's not the case. What happens when you sign on to scroll through your feed is that the illusion appears real. But it's not real--or to be more precise, it's not the whole truth. It's more like a Maskbook. Phil McGraw said something that epitomizes Facebook, "we all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of." 

The "compare & despair" game steals any and all joy. It makes whatever we have not enough and it's at the root of much of our discontent. 

You're either looking down on someone, or looking up on someone. You either feel less than or more than, inferior or superior. When in reality, noone can compare to you. It's a lose-lose. Noone is YOU, and isn't that wonderful? 

We compare all the time, not just on Facebook/social media, but in real life. Comparison is based on assumptions and assumptions are not truth. I'm here to say--don't fall for it. It's a game with no prize at the end.

Less comparison = more joy. 

Image courtesy of Pinterest: 

Instagram @sasha_tozzi: 

You guys. Please make this vow to yourself. I used to compare and despair all. the.time but I learned that it was a mind trap. I don't do it much anymore, because it's pointless. It's a trick. You just don't know someone's life--you never know the whole story. We may think we do, but we don't. Someone posts a happy picture at a fancy dinner in a cute outfit so you assume life is grand but what we don't see is her crying in the bathroom right before because she hates her life. Appearances are soooo deceptive, especially social media appearances. My aim is to be honest with you guys, to run my life and my business with integrity, but many moments, good and bad, don't even make it to my social media. And I don't usually post difficult things I'm going through until after I've processed them. ••••

Listen: you are beautiful. You're the only you out there, so spend your time on your own life, not guessing & theorizing about the lives of others.