5 Ways Facebook Success is Nothing Like Real Life Success

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photo by Mouser Williams

We all do this. We browse our Facebook feed and see extraordinary things happening all around us. A Facebook friend just climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. A friend of a friend won The Great Food Truck Race. Someone else was named Chicago’s Teacher of the Year. Or California’s No. 1 Realtor. Someone’s teenager just got a perfect SAT score.

It seems to happen all the time. Is the extraordinary the new ordinary? Facebook makes success look easy. And fast. And, dare I say, effortless. In the time it takes to look at a photo of someone celebrating a triumph, it’s just enough to feel jealous and insecure and easy to lose sight of what success looks like in real life, behind the photo.

1. Facebook success is a snapshot. A posed split-second moment in time. It’s a clear, succinct, still-framed, neat package with good cropping and fantastic lighting.

Real-life success is a slow messy saga. Which is often daunting, torturous and distracted. Or at least, a mini-series with no clear beginning and an open-ended end. In fact, it’s fuzzy all around the edges and the lighting is not good. That’s because it’s often dark (as in dark). read more

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  1. Facebook reminds me of the Jetsons. The video phone would ring and Jane Jetson would put on her “made up self” mask so the caller couldn’t see she was, in fact, a mess. On Facebook we often present our most successful self mask- while in truth, we are crumbling messes.

    1. Oh Annette! I love that! That is definitely the other fallacy of Facebook: the one-second smile.

    • Lillie Bryen

    • 8 years ago

    I just read this-loved it. Every kid should read this. I forwarded to all of mine. I can’t keep up with you lately! Xo

    Sent from my iPhone

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