I've been going through some amazing photos online lately and it got me to thinking about how many photos you have to throw out to get that one great, jaw dropping photo.
You know how it is, you take photos of your kids and then don't post them because there is clutter on the counter in the background or one of them is making a funny face. We cant have that so you have to start all over to make sure you are showing them in their best light and that your house looks uncluttered. We don't want people to see our mess, whether its a funny face or a cluttered counter. We want our snapshot to be clean and happy and clutter free.
It's much like sharing our lives either online or in person. We mostly leave out the clutter. Sure we can post about the messes but we are very specific about which messes we share, aren't we? We share about the big stuff, the really bad stuff, we know that everyone has some big messes so we can talk about some of ours. Someone we love is going through a big battle with their health so we can talk about that safely. We can complain about the weather or the politics or that thing that we are super passionate about.
Then there's the good stuff. We had a great vacation so lets share some of those photos, not the one where the seagull photobombed us of course, or the one of the kids fighting at Disneyland, but the best of the best photos. We know that we can share the first day of school shots, the graduations, the first of everythings.... those are the big moments. The ones you have to share. We take the photos of the best parts, near the pretty tree or the newly decorated front door. We take photos until our kids are screaming that they're going to miss the bus. You got that one great shot though didn't you?
But what about the clutter? What about the rest of the yard that may not look so pretty or the mail sitting on the counter? What about the ones that didn't turn out so great? We don't show any of that. We crop that out of what we show the world. We cant show the stuff that is left to be done, the projects that aren't finished, the mess we made while trying to cook that perfect meal that really wasn't all that perfect anyway. We hide all evidence of what the rest of our lives look like, all that stuff cant be shown or talked about in public. We shove it all in the closet so we can take the photos that we share with the world. We are ashamed of our life clutter, the day to day minutia that no one talks about. We are sure that we are the only ones who have this much stuff that needs to be done. We get overwhelmed thinking about how much stuff we have to do and start to think that everyone else's life must be so much easier than our own. We know that we have all this stuff to deal with, but our friends pictures looks so clean, so organized, and nothing out of place.
This is what happens when we compare our full un-photoshopped lives with someone else's snapshot. We look at their one picture and say "Their life is so much better than mine". "Why don't they have all this stuff that needs to be done?" Their pictures show happy kids, in a nice uncluttered home, with a great front door. Guess what? They have clutter too. They have papers on the counter that we don't see, they have those moments when they just want to scream at the mess their kids leave on the floor or the fact that yet, again, they have to take the dog to the vet. They have work stress and relationship stress and life clutter. They do! I promise you. So why is it we look at that one snapshot, the one photo out of the hundred that were taken to achieve that one and say "That's it! The the life I want. I would be so much happier if I could just live their life"
Our lives are not snapshots, we are not the one photo. We are made up of all the 99 photos that didn't turn out. Those are what life is all about, for all of us. The little insecurities that we don't show, the stuff on the counter, the stuff that is now jammed in the closet. The stuff we are ashamed to admit that we have. We all have life clutter. We all have things that we crop out of the picture we show the world.
We can't compare our whole lives with someone else's snapshot, No one lives their lives in the photos that we see. Those are the best moments, the big ones, the one out of 100 that we love and want to share with the world. Embrace your 99 photos, maybe even share a couple of them with your friends. Maybe then we can all take a deep breath and say "you too?! I thought I was the only one" and maybe we can start to realize that the stuff in our closets isn't so overwhelming and our lives are developing just the way they are supposed to.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Theodore Roosevelt
