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Highlight Reel vs Reality

5/21/2022

We all know that social media is not an accurate representation of "reality." Specifically, most people post "highlights." But we often scroll through our favorite social media wall and begin to compare ourselves - no matter how much we know we shouldn't!

Maybe you're having a day where you feel like you "never" leave home. Or everyone is sick. Or you're exhausted from a poor night's sleep. The kids are out of sorts and you're SURE that you are the worst mom ever. Then pops up one of your best friend's from high school - they are on an amazing vacation, out in the "real" world, exploring and having a blast. Ugh. You're brain short-circuits what you know to be true about social media and how people share the best of the best, and you become convinced that you are failing at life.

Why do we do this to ourselves?? I'm not sure why we do it, but I do know that it is pretty darn universal.

So below I've supplied a slide show of the Highlights of our recent family get-away. But I am going to fill in the Highlight reel with a few bits of reality so you can be assured that the happy smiles in sunshine were not EVERYTHING that went on during this adventure.

Bits of Reality:

Two full days of driving... Long days in the car that sandwiched 2 days at a remote cottage. (Why did we plan it this way? There were reasons, but they are too long to get into here. I did question our sanity at least once though!)
One young person throwing up in the car about 2 hours from our destination.
One young person having accidents to soil 3/6 pairs of shorts I packed for said young person before we even went to sleep the first night.
One very heavy boy refusing to walk on our short hike - which meant a great workout for mommy while he got a piggyback ride. (Of course when we turned around to go back to the car he ran/walked the whole way - which just happened to be Daddy's turn!)
Annoyed teen/preteen at goofy parents on an evening walk in which the path turned out to 1) not allow bikes and 2) not be paved for a scooter.
Much moaning, slumping and scuffing of feet during a hot outing.
A frantic, surreal search for a little boy who decided to go outside and explore while we made lunch. This was the lowest point and it was a doozy. Thankfully, all was well and said cute, little boy was found safe and sound.

Despite all of the harder parts I am glad that we went and made some fun family memories. It was overall a wonderful week. I am learning to push my and Carter's comfort zones being away from home (and our family's in general!) There are always moments when you think - oh man, what did we do??! But I am almost always able to shift my perspective or mental outlook at embrace the moment. It's such a great practice - to do something different and spice Life up! And then it's always so great to be back home again to decompress and feel comfortable again.

Now - if we can all just remember that social media posts are almost always the "Highlight Reel" and don't represent all of what really goes on, that'd be great.

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Highlight Reel vs Reality

Podcast appearance: The Grit and Grind of Autism - Finding Light Along the Journey

Susan May

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