Filter Free

 Take a moment and google the words “social media” and “loneliness.” Go on now, I’m giving you permission to take a break, stop reading this and type those three little words into your favorite search engine. {Then come back.}

So what popped up?

Well if you were too lazy to actually type in those words, I’ll tell you. Articles upon articles about how our society, while being the most connected we’ve ever been, also feels the most distant from one another. Studies showing correlation between the increasing friend count on your choice of social media and the rising depression, stress, and yes, loneliness that we struggle with.

This isn’t going to be a tirade about putting down our phones and being present in the moment {ironically enough written on a social media platform.} No, this will not be a diatribe against my generation for using and abusing a technology that while itself smart, makes us all dumb. Instead, I want to focus on one aspect of our social media use- perfectionism.

Pause for a brief moment and consider the vast number of filters you use in your everyday life. You filter the words you say {hopefully}, your search settings on Google, the people who show up on your social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. etc. etc. I could probably go on for days, but you get the general idea.

And we filter ourselves. We only present the photos in which we look our best. We only post statuses and updates when we’re doing something we feel is worth sharing. We filter our photos to make them look better- and sometimes less real. We only present ourselves as perfect and in doing so we deny ourselves the ability to share with one another who we truly are. We contribute to this growing sense of panic that everyone is doing better than me, everyone has their life together, everyone is growing more beautiful as I fade etc. etc. etc.

But what if we stepped away from the filter? What if we gave the world the opportunity to see us with our flaws? Why do we shy away from the idea that it's okay to showcase our imperfections AND our best side?

Why do I have to hide behind a filter?

I've never wanted anyone to look at anything I've posted online and think "wow, she looks great here but I know for a fact that is not what she looks like in real life." The vast majority of the time I'm lucky if I remembered to put pants on in the morning let alone worry about if I'm presenting the most beautiful version of myself. It's too exhausting and too time consuming. And I'm not say it' a bad thing if you're that person that does get put together every morning, that's just not me.

So that's not the way I want to represent myself.

I want people to see that I sometimes make a fool of myself. Sometimes I take bad photos. Sometimes I don’t wear pants {alright those photos don’t exist}. I don’t want to be thought of as that girl who has all her ducks in a row {aka all her shit figured out} because I don’t!

I want to be a person who looks like their having fun, learning along the way, and figuring it all out. I’m not perfect, no one is. 

Scroll through my facebook and I guarentee you'll find some of the most unflattering shots. Sometimes I've made them my profile picture. It's okay to laugh- that's the point.

I would much rather give people a reason to smile than to present them with a false version of myself. I really have made all those faces in real life at some point and if you're lucky, you were holding a camera and caught it.

This isn't intended to knock down those people that do post the best versions of themselves. Rather, it should serve as a reminder that we all filter things and that in order to truly judge a persons life {aka figure out how much crazy they're hiding} you actually need to be present in that persons life.

Or just stalk even harder.