Social Envy and The Fear of Missing Out

I have mixed feelings about social media. 

Recently studies like the one by the University of Michigan in August, 2014 state, "the more people use Facebook, the worse they feel about their own lives."  Terms such as "social envy",  fomo (fear of missing out), and "envy spiral" have arisen, and "social comparison" is the new term for "keeping up with the Jones".

Of course most of the anxiety from social comparison occurs because of the online embellishment of the truth. People polish themselves up or even recreate themselves online. 

So here I am writing this blog where I, too, could polish myself up or even recreate myself, and herein lies the crux of this post........

 I desperately don't want to be a part of this "social comparison" environment!  I don't want to come off as braggy about my life.  I write about my family, garden, dogs, feelings, and experiences because I am so grateful for the life God has given me. However, today it is important  to "unpolish" myself and admit some unenviable truths, so here goes.......

I am twenty pounds over weight.
I have the self discipline of a gnat.
I am addicted to Cheez-Its and have a box hidden in my bedside table.
I drive my husband crazy sometimes.
I am not a great cook.
My refrigerator needs a good cleaning and my oven is worse.
Bugs are eating the spinach in my garden.
The Garden Friendly Dogs need a bath.
The persimmon beer we brewed this fall is AWFUL and my muscadine jelly is cloudy.
I am afraid the seeds I recently planted with the Master Gardeners won't sprout and I will be kicked out of the group.
Some of my art work looks like a child did it.
I've never owned anything from Victoria's Secret.
If I didn't color my hair, I'd be completely gray.
I can't keep a secret.
I spent $50 on yarn for an afghan that I have never crocheted.

AND.......

I have popcorn ceilings!!!!!!

Now, no envy spiral from this blog!!!

I guess the ultimate goal is contentment and self-confidence so that social media doesn't stir in you feelings of anxiety, but sometimes that is easier said than done. However remembering that everything we have comes from the abundant grace of God should keep things in perspective as the words to the song say, "For nothing good have I where-by Thy grace to claim".

So here's to each of our lives - the gratefulness we have for them, the joy we find in them, and our efforts to "keep them real"!!

                                                                                            Love ya'll,
                                                                                                     Shelli



To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. ~Steve Jobs

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~Walter Kaufmann

***update: 3/5/15  I just reactivated my Facebook account. Booooo!!!  I didn't want to, but needed to be able to communicate through Facebook with our Master Gardener Group.  Will see how it goes.....