Time to Stop Looking?

Barb Szyszkiewicz considers ways to remedy her unhealthy reactions to things she sees on Instagram.

"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away." (Matthew 5:29)

This pretty much sums up Instagram for me, some days.

I like some things on Instagram. One of my kids shares photos of mountains he's climbed (though sometimes the views are a little scary for me), and another posts little videos of her silly cat. I like the graphics with encouraging phrases. I like the prayers. I like the pictures of delicious dinners (and cookies) with links in bio to recipes.

What I don't like so much is my reaction to the other stuff on Instagram. Since Instagram has become a replacement blogging platform, it's populated by women who fill it with their perfect homes, perfect furniture, perfect flowers, perfect perfection. Their heartfelt 800-word articles accompany these illustrations.

"So beautiful!"

"Such an inspiration!"

"So vulnerable!"

"So wise!"

The comments go on and on, and I'm over here feeling left out in all that beauty and all that sentiment.

girl cheating off boy's paper in school

We had our house repainted in December 2019 and the pictures are still not back on the walls. I had this grand idea that I wanted to re-frame them in all the same frames (I probably saw something like that on Instagram), but was only able to find half of the sizes I need when I went shopping for those in January, and that project has simply stalled out. That pile of new frames and the pile twice as high of old pictures? There's no beauty there.

Maybe if I spent less time on social media and more time cleaning my house, it would look like something out of a magazine too (oh, who am I kidding -- it's never going to look like that, but it would look better for sure).

Maybe if I got off the couch and used my phone to play an exercise video instead of tormenting myself with other people's salads and waistlines, I'd find my waist once again.

And I guess I'm just not the sentimental sort, but I'm just about driven to tears here by all the moms who are weeping on Instagram about back-to-school, especially those sending children off to college. Maybe it'll hit me after my kid actually leaves for college, since he's my last one, but at this point I'm just glad for the prospect that he'll get to go live at college at all -- homecolleging is not the best way to go, especially when you're a science major. But I see all the moms lamenting their babies leaving home and wonder what in the world is wrong with me.

My coping mechanism is to "keep it real" and post something self-deprecating (or, worse, something that makes someone else in my house look bad) because this way I shame myself before someone else gets the chance. I do this way too much for that to be considered a healthy strategy.

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Two ways to take action when social media use becomes unhealthy. #catholicmom

Is my right eye causing me to sin? When it's looking at Instagram, yes, I think it is. I find myself giving in to envy about other people's homes, stuff, appearance, and emotions. I don't resent that they have what I don't, but I wallow in self-pity because I don't have what they do.

I think it's time for me to take action in two ways. I need to go to confession. And I need to start using the unfollow and mute functions on social media until I can have a better attitude toward the total strangers whose carefully curated lives I'm comparing to my own, and falling short every time.

woman looking sadly at cell phone