Don’t Compare Your Inner Thoughts to Other People’s Media Profiles
Their inside is as bad as you think yours is
When I was in my twenties, I spent a lot of time tieing myself in knots reacting to other people’s actions. Consequently, I spent many hours riddled with self-loathing or bitching about whoever I thought had wronged me.
If a friend was promoted or got a new house, I felt like a failure. When a colleague got engaged or had a baby, I was envious and wondered why I wasn’t getting on with my life too.
Their babies slept all night, breastfeeding was a breeze, and sex with their husbands was even better than it was before. Only I was in shock and wondering what the hell had happened to my life. I thought there was something wrong with me.
I felt the world was against me, and I didn’t understand why.
Bear in mind was the eighties, and counseling, imposter syndrome, and emotional intelligence were rarely spoken about.
Over the years, I learned to examine my own behavior. I devoured self-help books. Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, amongst many others, became my go-to books. I changed my profession to HR, where I benefited from emotional intelligence and leadership training.
One of my most helpful insights was to avoid comparing what was going on inside my head with the image that other people were projecting. I learned to avoid comparing my inside to their outside.
Inside out comparisons
Though the ideas gleaned from self-help books were useful, I had to put the ideas into practice. This meant objectively observing my own and other people’s behavior.
My lack of objectivity wasn’t doing me any favors. I took people at face value. Speaking the truth is one of my core values, and I assumed everyone was the same. I’m an extrovert, so what goes through my head comes unfiltered straight out of my mouth.
The idea that people would misrepresent their lives was foreign to me. If I have a sore toe, you’ll hear all about it. When I had a colonoscopy, I wrote two articles about my experiences, including the bit where I forgot to remove my underwear in the cubicle and had to struggle out of my knickers in front of the full medical team before the procedure.
The day I realized that I was comparing my insides to everyone else’s outsides was a game-changer.
For example: My inside: I’m not doing too well at work, and I’m worried I’ve upset my friend.
I say: I’m worried about work, I’m not sure what to do. And to top it off, I’ve upset Jackie.
Other people’s inside: I think my relationship is ending, and I don’t know how I’ll cope with paying the bills if it does.
They say: Matt and I had a fabulous weekend visiting Lucy and Martin. So much fun. Next weekend we are going out to get me a brand new car.
Your closest friends probably tell you the truth, but other people don’t. So we all walk about thinking everyone else has a perfect life except for our friends and us. We only hear about problems when they blow up into a full catastrophe. For example when the bloke across the office disappears for a week to sort out somewhere to live because his wife has chucked him out.
I remember a personal example from when I had my daughter. It was a huge shock. Suddenly my freedom, spare time, and ability to sleep vanished. At the postnatal group, everyone else seemed ecstatic. Having a baby was the best thing that ever happened to them, and they were fulfilled.
Their babies slept all night, breastfeeding was a breeze, and sex with their husbands was even better than it was before. Only I was in shock and wondering what the hell had happened to my life. I thought there was something wrong with me.
Fast forward two years, and I knew these women much better. Stories of postnatal depression, marital problems and illness surfaced. They shared that they had regretted having a child. So much for ecstatic, fulfilled lives.
I was comparing how I felt inside with their outside image. Some people just don’t talk about what is going on in their lives. For whatever reason, they project an inaccurate impression of success.
Social media makes everything ten times worse. I’ve seen people whose marriages are in trouble posting ‘happy family’ pictures and people who hate their jobs post about how honored and humbled they are to work for their company on LinkedIn.
No wonder we think everyone is having a grand old time. We see untruths every day.
Should everyone bare their soul to us? No, of course not. But we can manage our own thoughts better.
Final Thoughts
Feeling that everyone else has a perfect life or is doing better in some areas than we are is depressing. We are competitive in that we want to keep up. That’s normal but we don’t need it to ruin our lives.
When we think about how we feel about life, remember we are experiencing our insides and seeing other people’s outsides.
Be kind to yourself and stop the comparisons and concentrate on what is good in your life.
Are you comparing your inside with other people’s outside?
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