Being Authentic on Social Media

I read a blog post the other day about how women should just have a good attitude about pregnancy and it will be this happy, amazing journey, and how your husband deserves a happy wife for those 9 months. This girl went on to post all these pictures of her looking totally glamorous, working out, and just looking so unbelievably pretty, perfect, and happy in every picture!

As I read, I started feeling terrible about myself. I thought, "Man this girl is such a better wife than me. She is always in love with pregnancy and always looks so beautiful! I must be such a bad wife because I've had a really hard time with pregnancy and have not enjoyed it. And look how pretty she is in every photo! I rarely even get ready anymore...of course I can't feel my hands so that has something to do with it...but seriously how does this girl looks glamorous every single day? How is this girl's pregnancy and her life so perfect?!"

Then all of a sudden I just stopped and thought about it for a minute... I shared some of her post with Ryan and we just started laughing! This was ridiculous! I didn't even know this girl and she doesn't know me! How could she be influencing how I feel about myself and my life!?!

Social media and what we write/post has an influence on others, whether we realize it or not. I think it's healthy to post both the good AND the hard times to better represent what real life is. I'm not super good at posting regularly on Facebook or Instagram but when writing my blog I've often felt bad if I write negative details because I feel like maybe I'm complaining or coming across as negative or something. However, now I realize that I shouldn't feel bad about that. This is life! And life is not always perfect or easy and doesn't need to be portrayed or remembered that way.

Sometimes writing about the hard times is just what I need to remember/count my blessings. It's one thing to whine (which hey- sometimes I do) but it's another thing entirely to write your history and work/cry/laugh your way through it. There is always going to be good with the bad and it's OK and healthy to acknowledge that!

This morning my husband shared this quote that his sister Jennica shared with him and I just thought it was perfect! It really makes you want to think twice about what you post and what you see on social media.

"Elder David A. Bednar recently cautioned members to be authentic in the use of social media. A prominent thought leader, Arthur C. Brooks, has emphasized this point. He observes that when using social media, we tend to broadcast the smiling details of our lives but not the hard times at school or work. We portray an incomplete life—sometimes in a self-aggrandizing or fake way. We share this life, and then we consume the “almost exclusively … fake lives of [our] social media ‘friends.’” Brooks asserts, “How could it not make you feel worse to spend part of your time pretending to be happier than you are, and the other part of your time seeing how much happier others seem to be than you?”

It's too easy to look at social media and think how easy someone else has it, or how perfect life is for someone else. However, life isn't perfect for anyone. It's important to remember that. Rather than pretend it is, we can be grateful for the life we have been given and try to be more balanced about what we post on social media and more selective in who we choose to follow.