instagram isn't a highlight reel
the best things in life are the ones you can't package up for social media
They say Instagram is just a highlight reel. A place for people to tout their accomplishments — a new promotion, a shiny engagement ring, a luxurious vacation, a hot new boyfriend, whatever that may be.
I disagree.
I find that the best moments in life aren’t on Instagram because they simply can’t be.
My life’s highlights aren’t my outfit posts or where I work or even where I traveled to on vacation, as much as I enjoy exploring new cities.
My life’s highlights are discovering a deeper love within my relationship — one developed years after my wedding that was shared on Instagram — and the unexpected bond with the stray cat we took in and a newfound closeness with my mom and the unlikely friendship with my elderly neighbors and reconnecting with someone who I grew apart from and the intimate connections I’ve made through a shared love of books.
These intimate, special moments can’t be shared through a social media post. No one’s around to take a photo when my husband and I lay together in a park on a warm, sunny day, hands intertwined, watching the world go by. I can post a photo of my cat, but what people can’t see is the way she cuddles up near my chest each night to go to sleep or the way she jumps on my lap every morning to watch me work. There’s no record button on the times my family and I sit around the dinner table, laughing while we make fun of one another.
What is shared online are only the things that can be shared, that can be captured. I think it’s important to remember this, especially after a week of what felt like everyone on social media sharing their end-of-year highlights and the feelings that sometimes come from consuming that. I know how hard it is to compare your “highlight reel” to another’s — especially when that someone’s job is to curate theirs impeccably.
And I also know that from 10 years in working in social media, that the highlights you see, are more often than not, not really highlights at all. You may come across a dreamy video of a woman waking up to breakfast made by her partner on her birthday, but if you take a moment to consider what you are really watching, you realize that the moment is staged — that a camera is set up in a corner and the partner and her are performing what only seems real. You might stumble upon a gorgeous photo of your favorite celebrity on some remote island and while it may look fun or carefree, it’s likely that that fun and carefree photo actually took 52 takes, with different poses and angles to get the perfect shot.
The type of moments that actually bring happiness — not just look it — are not ones you can whip out your phone and snap a photo of. They are the small, quiet moments that culminate into bigger ones — ones that you don’t even know are the big moments in your life until you look back and realize what actually makes your life worth living.
So the next time you get that gnawing feeling that your life isn’t good enough, take a step back and ask yourself: What is it that makes me happy? What are the things that really matter?
Go a step further and write them down — in a journal or even in the Notes app if the feeling strikes when you are out and about, scrolling on your phone.
I’d guess that most of what came to mind can’t be shared in an Instagram post or a seven second video clip, but are things that only you can intimately know, cherish and hold onto instead of things that can be packaged up for the world to see and consume.
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