The wonderful thing about these evenings is the opportunity to catch up with friends - those I see fairly regularly and those I see rarely.
Late in the evening I got to chat to a dear friend who I don't see half as much as we'd like. We asked after each other's work and training and families and as much in between in the limited time available. We got on to Facebook and accomplishments and she mentioned a bunch of her women friends who are her friends and who she admires for their successes, accomplishments and achievements and just also because they're people that she likes. She doesn't see herself in quite the same way. But I do.
My friend is smart and the boss of her company. She has sweet, young children who she is doing the most wonderful job of nurturing and raising. She's sporty and adventurous and incredibly capable. Her husband is a really good guy too. And she's just a lovely human being too.
But she doesn't feel as if she measures up to 'the mark'.
There's no way one can measure up when you compare yourself to what other people are doing as presented on social media. Facebook shows friends on holiday after holiday, completing races, projects and tasks, the training session after training session... As she quite rightly says, her one friend posts almost daily about her 6am gym sessions; my friend is at gym at 5am because you've got to do what you've got to do... what's the big deal?
Everyone seems to do so much more than me and you. How can one ever compete?
Well, you don't.
Facebook is so not a true reflection of what really goes on.
For every project I get off the ground - FEAT, Forest Run, Metrogaine, nav coaching - I've got a bunch of others that I've done little more with than write on a list. There's the document I need to write, the proposal to write and submit, the crochet projects I've been working on for months, the run I skipped because of other things that needed doing (or because I was being lazy), the (many) mornings when I sleep past my alarm because I just can't get up, the items that stay on my lists for months, the person I should phone but haven't got around to, the favour I should ask for but I don't, the ideas I have but I don't get around to, the friends I rarely see, the online course I'm getting behind on (catch-up day today), the language learning (should be daily!) that I struggle to keep up with....
Media - whether social or 'professional' - is just media. There's still a real world out here.
(Nice blog on the Huffington Post about the Facebook 'perfect life' syndrome).
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