Why I Stopped Pretending

Our culture celebrates shiny, perfect things and people are no exception. We live in a culture of perfectionism and pretending, even while there is a counter-movement to live vulnerably and wholeheartedly (Thank you very much, Brene Brown!). We post our perfect lives, with our perfect partners and our perfect kids, going on our perfect vacations…and then back to our perfect careers. We all know that social media does a number on our psyches. We KNOW that we are not seeing people’s perfect lives, but we still get sucked into the comparison game and feeling really lousy that our messed up, ugly lives don’t match up with what we are seeing on the socials. And we know it’s wreaking havoc on our social-emotional well-being. Yet, here we are.