The last few years of my life, for whatever reason, I have become
more keenly aware of a flawed human tendency. It seems that everyone struggles
in some capacity with insecurities. This is normal, right? Of course it is, but
I would posit that we can eliminate the majority of our insecurities by doing
one thing.
Pastor Steven Furtick said it best, “The reason we struggle
with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s
highlight reel.” Now it is human nature to compare ourselves with other people.
People are annoyingly ubiquitous and there is no getting around it. In our
quest to become better individuals and progress in society we look at what we
are accomplishing or doing, and juxtapose it to those around us. But as Furtick
opined, perhaps this is a perilous practice if we are not careful. Don’t get me
wrong, it can be a very positive thing to compare ourselves to others with the
goal of self-improvement. Oh the wondrous things we can glean from the amazing
souls around us. Wherein lays this insidious problem then? The problem is we
rarely see the struggles people go through. We do not know who is furtively
depressed. We do not know who feels utterly pummeled by the cosmos. This is of
course mostly because people do not usually broadcast there woes. And if they
do, we usually find these proclamations as pathetic and a little woe-is-me in
nature.
Generally people post about the great things in life through
social media. Scrolling through Facebook and Instagram we see vacations, great
food, and timeless friendships. We see love and magnificent activities. But do
vacations and fancy eats equate to felicity? What about the other side: What
about the hard times we all go through? People do not usually advertise their
broken hearts, their weary minds and their cracking moods. We don’t see
everyone’s lonely nights. We don’t see everyone’s indecision and muddled
thoughts. We see the glory, and the good. But do hard times equate to a poor
quality of life? Do difficult moments make our life inferior to another’s?
Truth is, we all go through things. We all have dark alcoves
that we don’t like visiting. We all experience hurtful things we don’t want
publicized. But it is so easy to look with envy at those luxuriating around us,
those seemingly bereft of stress or any notion of sadness. Again, this is a
flawed practice. We are being slightly ridiculous if we think people are not
out there struggling like we are. The problem is we don’t know fully any one
person’s struggle, yet we know all too well the intricacies and gray corners of
our own trials.
In an attempt to rid ourselves of at least a modicum of our
own insecurities, let’s remember the following: It is a sign of great maturity
and a progressive mind to be unsatisfied with the status quo, to be
uncomfortable with conforming and disdainful of mediocrity, but sometimes we
take that desire too far.
One more time for repetition…
“The reason we struggle
with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s
highlight reel.”
