The Facebook Facade

You're on the couch at 8:30pm, in your sweat pants after a long day. Your hair is a mess. Your not wearing any makeup. And…you're eating cheap Chinese food because you're too tired to cook.

What do you do? Scroll through Facebook, of course. What do you see everyone else currently doing?

• Melissa just took a selfie skydiving with her boyfriend (who's in medical school to become a doctor).

• Heather just bought a super cute pair of jeans at 50% off, and posted a selfie of them in the mirror (which also happens to show off her new tattoo)

• Joy and Janice just went to the spa, got a makeover and look so amazing, yep a double selfie with your bestie (BF's forever).

• Guess who just started a non-glutton, organic, vegan, sugar free, liquid cleanse diet? Nancy did. With a selfie to show off the 10 pounds she lost in only two days! (And the best part is she's not even hungry!).

Let me ask you an honest question. What's your initial reaction? Are you happy for your Facebook friends? Or deep down, are you jealous?

We want to be happy for them, but sometimes we can't. But why? For some reason we feel inferior to these people. We think they have this amazing life and I'm just sitting on the couch at 8:30pm, in my comfies, eating 2000% of my daily MSG intake…

The problem is twofold:

1. FACEBOOK IS A FACADE. 
2. COMPARISON DIMINISHES SELF WORTH. 

Facebook is a highlight and lowlight reel. Facebook is full of accolades, accomplishments and let's be honest most of the time, boasting. As a father of four young girls I'm just as guilty as the rest. Kid walking at six months, talking by a year, doing calculus with an iPhone app etc. etc.

Here's the thing to remember, Facebook is not real life. Facebook is a perception, a snapshot into someone's "perfect" exterior life. Facebook is a façade. Although sometimes people share their struggles or prayer requests, it's mostly only the good stuff that shows up in the news feed. Usually there's a whole part of someone's life kept in secret because they are too afraid to share it with the world. But why are we so afraid to share our struggles, failures, disappointments and discouragements?

The answer is: COMPARISON. We make the mistake of finding our self worth in how many Facebook likes we get on a photo. Think about it, how often do we return to see how make people "liked" the selfie that took five thousand tries to get "right"?

When we compare ourselves to other people's accomplishments and accept our self worth from that ranking, we are always going to be left feeling inferior. There will always be someone who is better looking, more fit, healthier, stronger, funnier, more "successful", richer, etc.

The fact is our self worth isn't found in Facebook likes. Our self worth is found in our identity as a beloved child of God. We have a God who loves us and created us for a unique and specific purpose. Not only that but he's given us each unique gifts and talents to help build one another up.

Imagine how Facebook would be different if we only shared our struggles, if we stopped comparing ourselves to one another and used the online social platform as a means to bear one another's burdens. Now that's time well spent.