Do a digital detox!
As soon as I heard the words, I was skeptical. Carlos wanted to see if we could stay off social media for a few 
days so he turned it into a competition. First one to crack gets turned into a human ice cream sundae on the air, (video coming soon!)
I am completely addicted to social media. I know this. I do not need a detox to prove it to me. However, I decided to try the contest…and I totally DOMINATED! Even though Carlos cracked on the first day and I totally won, I learned a lot being off social media for almost 4 days.
I knew that I was addicted, but what I didn’t know was that social media was affecting me so negatively. I noticed at the end of the first day that my mind felt less cluttered. By the end of the second day, I felt more at peace and generally happier. By the third day it dawned on me that I hadn’t compared myself to others as much while on this detox. I didn’t know what I was missing out on. I didn’t look at what I had and think about how others have more. Suddenly, I wasn’t coveting other people’s:
Photo by Spencer E Holtaway
Relationships
Vacations
Cars
Marriages
Lives
Why was I content before to just scroll through Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook while becoming more and more dissatisfied with my own life? Comparison is a game that you will lose EVERY TIME. It steals your joy and causes you to point to your life and say, “God, what you’ve given me isn’t good enough. Why can’t I have that and be that?”
You might not even notice that you play the comparison game daily, but you WILL notice the difference when you STOP! Detoxing from social media was hard, but so refreshing. I do not know what parties and hangouts I missed out on this weekend, or what precious family photos my friends posted. I don’t even know if anyone liked my old posts. It allowed me the freedom to live in the moment without searching for validation from others on my life. I found myself enjoying moments instead of documenting them and sharing them with the web.
To stop comparing yourself to others just minimize your social media usage.
It will seem impossible and miserable at first, but that’s because it can truly suck you in. Social media WILL cause you to compare your life against others and degrade your quality of life. I want to use things like Facebook to intentionally interact with people and not simply as a time waster that will lead to discontentment. We do not need to have THAT much insight into to our friend’s lives. During my detox, I felt like I stopped stalking my friends and instead called them to get life updates. Life is beautiful and we are given all that we need. Let’s not miss it because of the comparison game!
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