Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is don't compare your actual life and your interior struggles to curated versions of other people's lives. Many people have struggles of some sort or another, but even if they don't, there is no point feeling bad about yourself in comparison. Today's tip was inspired by Anne LaMotte, author of the books Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies, among
many others. On the occasion of her sixty first birthday, she made a list of everything she knew for sure, and this list ultimately became a TED talk called Twelve Truths I've Learned from life and writing. One of those truths, she says, is that everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared. Even the people seem to have it most together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to other people's outsides.
It will only make you worse than you already are. There is definitely something to that comparing yourself to other people who seem better off is never going to make you happier. Unfortunately, social media makes it all too easy to compare your inside to other people's outsides. You know firsthand what your real life is like, and when you scroll through social media you see what other people's posts
are about their lives. Seeing all the fabulous images and news they share can lead to feeling bad about yourself, like everyone else has more fun, more friends, more money, more harmonious and footagenic children, and more happy memories than you. That's one thing with celebrities, but even people we know can seem to have it all together. And when we focus on comparing ourselves to others, we're not actually connecting with them, so everyone ends up lonelier too. So what
to do instead? Well to start, when you look at social media, or holiday cards, or the photos displayed on a friend or colleagues's desk, remind yourself that you are getting a curated view of the other person's life. You are not seeing the whole picture. It's perfectly fine to congratulate them on that one awesome moment, but realize that
probably not all their moments are just like that. You can also suffer less from comparisons by putting in the time to connect directly with people, and I don't mean
by just liking their posts. If you call your friend, you'll talk about that lovely photo she put hosted of her family hiking the Grand Canyon, for sure, and then you will get to hear all the funny stories about how one kid got carsick and threw up, and one kid sat down in the middle of the trail and refused to go further until she was promised an eminem
every fifty yards. I don't subscribe to a theory that everyone is secretly miserable, but we don't need to assume everyone is miserable to feel better about our own bad moments. We simply need to realize that any moment is not the whole story. Most people have at least some ups and downs. Choosing to connect authentically with other people can make us feel better even if we are having struggles. So go with that and everyone will feel better in
the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.