The Mask of A Screen

 

Perfect

Happy

Exciting 

Is how our lives may seem on a screen

But there is so much more

That is not seen

Nobody sees 

The tears

The stress

The bags under our eyes

The slamming of doors

The escalated arguments

The restless nights 

Because it is so easy to cover it all up

It is so easy to slap on a filter

Or simply not post what we don’t want to be seen

What we don’t want our lives to seem

Just under a month ago, AP exams were in session. I can clearly remember the hours and hours of studying I put into them, the many rounds of tears I shed, and the horrendous amounts of sleep they deprived me of. I especially struggled with AP chemistry, which my friend Medha and I decided to study for together. 

It was just when the weather started truly feeling like summer. The drastic change from a high of 50° to 90° was definitely unforgettable. Medha and I decided to study in her basement, to escape the scorching heat. In the shorts I dug out from last summer, I sat down on a couch that I would soon become very familiar with. We planned out what video lessons we would watch, what multiple choice practices we would do, and what free response sections we would complete each day. The problem was: we underestimated just how much time we would spend reviewing and figuring out problems or even whole concepts that we didn’t have much of a grasp on before. So there we were, spending 9 hours a day studying for an exam in Medha’s basement. The worst part was, the studying didn’t just end the minute we stepped out of her basement. We completed what was left of the specific work we planned out for each day on our own, in the early morning, or on FaceTime. Then we would start the cycle all over again the next day, for a whole week. The point is, there wasn’t a second of time during the week of AP exams when I didn’t feel stressed out of my mind. 

However, if you looked on my social media pages, you wouldn’t have seen any of that. You would have seen me, looking happy in my black-framed glasses, eating snacks, wondering if I was watching a movie, not knowing that my eyes were exhausted from the obnoxious hours of my daily screen time. You would have seen me getting fast food from drive-throughs with my friend, wondering where we were eating, not knowing that we barely had any time to eat with all the work we were doing. You would have seen me celebrating the end of exams with cookies, not knowing how much I was beating myself up because I thought I had failed. I was extremely unhappy during this time, and my profiles online didn’t reflect that at all, which is why we should never compare ourselves to what we see on social media.

Everybody wants their lives to seem better than they actually are. Why would we post something we aren’t proud of, or something that makes us look bad? Our online self is a carefully crafted version of our very best self. So no matter how perfect someone’s life looks online, just know that they get to pick and choose only the best parts of their lives to showcase to everybody else. This is why we should never compare ourselves to anything we see on social media. Social media is not real. But our lives are. So cherish each and every moment you want, the highs and the lows, instead of comparing yourself to an impossible standard.