Why does Facebook famously feed depression? The Happiest Virtual Place On Earth can feel like one endless reminder of the Things That Are Missing in our life. Offline, I look at the people around me. My single friends would give an arm to be married. Those with families of their own each have their burden, ones I am grateful to have been spared. So why are we convinced that others were dealt better cards, when every one of us remains in need of support and understanding?
Reasons We’re Sure Everybody Else Is Happier
1. We are unsatisfied with our lot, no matter how it turns. The human condition is not, in the language of mathematicians, an equation but an inequality: My life < The Ideal. By literary metaphor, we are an unfinished story, which is why our heart beats for more. More money, more time, more joy, more toys, more love. We bring to the table our fractured perspective, limited understanding, hopes conceived of an unresolved past. We will never, by the bootstraps of our humanness, be able to complete our relationships because we can’t complete ourselves.
2. Our sense of entitlement. Conflict in these imperfect relationships gives us away and pride declares, “I deserve better. He owes me appreciation, recognition. She should’ve given me the benefit of the doubt.” Disgruntled where we are, how green we find the grass on the other side.
3. The myth of perfectionism. I borrow insights from Alain Botton, author of the NY Times article Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person, on our misguided notions of love because nowhere else do we so generously spin our fantasies of happiness. In a recent roundtable entitled How We Choose Our Spouses, Botton spoke of the reaction his article had garnered:
What was interesting was that people were overwhelming relieved. Look, it’s like telling people you will have an unhappy life…I think that often we suffer from a burden of shame around how difficult it is that we find it to live, to love, to make good choices…And the reason that there is something oppressive in being told that only perfection will do as the basis of marriage, is that so many of our marriages, under that kind of judgment, have to seem below par and it can seem rather punitive and oppressive as if we have failed to measure up to a standard which most of us simply cannot measure up to.
We allow Facebook and blogs to perpetuate the hope in fairy tales, the expectation that we grow up and live happy, photogenic lives.
We should learn to accommodate ourselves to ”wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners…We don’t need people to be perfect in love. We need people to be good enough.
4. Love, according to Botton, is not an impulse of feeling but a skill. It isn’t pay dirt at emotional Roulette but “with all of us deeply broken, a chance of success in love means being able to deal with our brokenness, both inside ourselves and in a partner.” I’d say this truth holds for all our relationships. “Compatibility is ultimately an achievement of love. It shouldn’t be…the precondition of falling in love.” Love is something you work, and often work hard, at. You manage expectations of spouse, friend, self, and life, being able to explain your craziness as you grow in self-awareness. But we somehow believe life doesn’t exact so much effort of those around us.
A Holistic Journey 
Thank you for guiding me to a post that speaks such truths to me. One of the reasons I left Facebook (two and half years ago) was because I had developed that ‘grass is greener’ mentality, thus, seeing my own life as bleak in comparison. But we only show what we choose to show on these social sites and, of course, we aren’t going to bare ‘warts and all’. Fairytales are much more fun! Is everyone else happier than us? Hmm… no, they just appear to be. As you said, no one knows what lurks behind closed doors. And since distancing myself from the likes of Facebook and other social media, I feel liberated and free…. and most importantly, able to FOCUS on my OWN life…in the here and now…without getting distracted by the lives of others.
A great post, my dear. One that many will be able to relate to!
Right! I’m off to read this Alain Botton article. I’ll let you know my thoughts! xx
“I feel liberated and free…. and most importantly, able to FOCUS on my OWN life…in the here and now…without getting distracted” I love that. You know, we have one shot at this, A.L. It goes so fast.
Yes we do! We’d better embrace every sweet (or sometimes not so sweet) moment of it! ❤
I read the first and last sentence… as usual, of your post. “I have a big house, a husband who sees to my needs, a boy I adore, and friends who’ve got my back. When Facebook gets me down, psh, I’ll just come back to my blog.” And I am totally confused…
“I read the first and last sentence…And I am totally confused…”
Ya think?
I thought I was good at this too. 🤔
Awesome. It brought happiness just reading it.
Very sweet. Thanks.
A really interesting read, I can completely relate to what you describe – especially the sadness, irritation, inferiority and disappointment that social media can breed. And I love Alan de Botton. I have read a number of his books and heard him speak in London. A fascinating guy. I think over the years (and in relation to my marriage) I have been learning that actually the only things in the world that will make me happy are already within me waiting to come out. My husband can try his best (and he does bless him) but he will never succeed – partly because he is not the other half of me. I am a whole me, but there is a half that needs drawing out, cultivating, nurturing, encouraging and occasionally coercing. Only then will I become fully whole, and my husband be able to breath a sigh of relief 🙂
“the only things in the world that will make me happy are already within me waiting to come out.” Most interesting. Many would say it is God who completes us, which is why we come up short in seeking fulfillment in others (humans). But I do think happiness is often like the glasses we’re searching for…that’s sitting on our head. Ha ha ha, hope Hubby gets to breathe well soon.
So does he 🙂
And yes, as you say, many would say that God completes us. My question might be, perhaps he already did? We just haven’t caught on yet, and we need his help throughout life to show us the way to the person we were always born to be and had within us – and to recognise that wholeness is not to be found outside of ourselves. Asking another person to complete us is a tough gig for anyone to live up to, and I fear will ultimately fail. We can only do that for ourselves I believe. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. They make a great deal of sense to me 🙂
I agree with how you framed this (God, wholeness, awareness). “Asking another person to complete us is a tough gig for anyone to live up to” I have to hit myself on the head for constant reminders that my husband is HUMAN and I’m supposed to be his helper because…he needs it. Here’s another angle: We discovered I am emotionally independent. I feel quite satisfied with myself (ha ha ha ha!) and emotionally don’t look to him to fill me. But he is a different story, esp in light of his sad upbringing. And so I need to remember compassion (and that thing called love) to try and provide the creaturely comfort he was meant to feel coming from his wife.
Thoughtful post, thank you. (Please disregard earlier typo!)
Appreciate your time. =)
This article lifted my spirits up. I was feeling very depressed about life and marriage. Compromises, adjustments and accomodationism will provide the strengths to make marriage perfect. Anand Bose from Kerala
Absolutely. The things worth fighting for require adaptability.
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Is everybody else happier? Maybe, maybe not. Appearances can be deceptive. And at any rate what if they are? 🙂 I don’t, never (?) compare myself to others. Some may be more successful? Or less? 🙂 Who cares? Have more? or less? The minute one starts comparing to others… one is fried. 🙂 What matters is “are YOU happy?” If yes, great. If not, or not completely, ask yourself what are you missing and work on that… (But definitely never compare…)
Thank you for these thoughts.
I noticed a comment at the top by Amanda Lyle, whose blog I enjoyed tremendously. She dropped out of blogging. Sad. I hope she will find the happiness to reconnect.
Take care my dear.
The implication was how we (most of us who are not as wise as you, and I mean that) FEEL as though others are happier than we are, though we may know everyone has his burden. And yes: one of the root problems with this feeling is the fact that we are comparing. I am with you on your thoughts, but there aRe circumstances in life that in their toughness naturally – almost casually – contrast themselves against the smiles of those around us.
Very true. I guess it is inevitable to feel that sometimes. 🙂 We all have to learn how to face dire straits… 🙂
Take care.