As more and more of our lives are made public through social media, it has me thinking.
There is a push like never before, not only to document and broadcast moments of our lives, but to render our experiences visible.
And yet, some of the most important moments of our lives (arguably all of them) will not be visible. There will be no photograph to capture the moment. There will be nothing to post. As a good friend once said to me, you can’t take a picture of your soul. The best parts of the story happen on the inside.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these technologies that make us feel more connected, give us an audience to make our voices heard, help us to share ideas and beautiful things, and inspire us. They can indeed enrich our lives.
But a negative side effect arises when we confuse the slices of life that someone chooses to share with a depiction of a real life. When we compare, and feel bad. It’s not real life. What you see on social media is not the full story.
Let’s remember, as we are designing our lives, to focus on a life that feels good on the inside, not one that just looks good on the outside.
Let’s not tie the worth and quality of our selves, our bodies, our weekends and our lives, to how good they look in a photograph (and how many likes they get).
Here’s to our invisible lives.
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