Life’s Greatest Illusion

Today is my day off. I got up, ran a couple errands and had time to run to the gym to get a little workout in before I had some other things I needed to get done.

I was feeling good about myself. I had a productive morning, I was wearing my fancy leggings that give the illusion that I have off-brand Carrie Underwood legs. I had some evident confidence brewing.

There is a ring light in the gym and I decided that my mid-morning high called for a cute picture to document the rare occasion of me kinda having my shit together. Throughout my entire workout I was already planning my Instagram caption for the pictures I hadn’t yet taken

“Good little pump on this fine Thursday” no no “I be in the gym just workin’ on my fitness” no what about blah blah blah. I spent about 25 minutes taking pictures.

Truth is, I was kind of more excited about the pictures than the workout itself. Upon realizing that I decided I needed to take a few pictures that were slightly more realistic. I ditched the unbelievable power of my holy grail leggings and tried to capture the REAL REAL!

I looked at the pictures. Yup those are gross. Don’t like that. The camera adds 10 lbs right?

That is real life though. I was eager to post my posed, sucked in, standing up straight pictures, yet I was uncomfortable just looking at the pictures that showed me as is.

Which brings me to my point. What is ‘Life’s Greatest Illusion’?

Girl, it is social media!

I spend more time than I would like to admit on my social media platforms. If I spent the same amount of time knitting a blanket that I do on Facebook and Instagram every day, Texas would be covered in yarn!

Social Media is full of the documentation of peoples lives. Peoples families, their house’s, their new cars, their trips, all of it. But that is the thing, we DO NOT see all of it. We see what they want us to see.

I catch myself in a circle of constant envy when doing my routine scroll. “I wish my hair looked like that girls”…”How is her butt so perky?”….”I wish I was in Cabo too” I could go on and on.

There is lots of struggle in between those posts though. Struggle that is real and constant and can be easily missed through the lens of an iPhone camera.

There are two BIG HUGE MASSIVE takeaways from this point.

1. What you see is not always what you get. Stop fretting that you don’t have what everybody else seemingly has! If you spend your life wanting what you see, you will lose time being thankful for what you have.
2. Just because someone seems to have it all together, doesn’t mean they really do. Give grace. You don’t know the battles someone else is fighting on their home front.

Those pictures you have though, the good ones, the ones where your smile is big and your life seems put together for the time being, post them. It is okay to share the good side of things. It is okay to put a filter on your pictures, and share the 1 out 4,000 pictures you have where all your kids are actually looking at the camera.

Just remember that it is 100% okay for things to not always be like that. Sometimes the grass is green on your side, and other times you got tumbleweeds rolling around on your lawn! But life is about the season you’re in, and everybody’s grass is dead sometimes.

Live your life, not anybody else’s

XOXO -B