God put something extra on my heart this week that I need to share with you. If you have followed me on social media for about 30 minutes, you’ll know that I love to bake. I’m a solid amateur baker. I find it to be relaxing, and I enjoy trying to new things just to see if I can do them. I also love it when I can take a pretty picture of whatever I’ve made.
I made homemade sweet rolls a few days ago. I took a picture and posted it to my socials just after I got them out of the oven. They looked amazing. Many people agreed. I don’t do this every time I make something, but I do it often. Why? Why do we do this? Why do we feel the need to share this type of thing? I think that I’m stunned every time something turns out sort of well and want to just share my own happiness about it.
When I take trips or do something slightly different than my normal, I also frequently post pictures of it. I’m clearly not the only person who does this. I was thinking of how much I do it and about the dangers it can lead to. Dangers of comparison. Dangers of just knowing a piece of the story. Dangers of making assumptions based on a final result without having seen any of the process. It’s hard not to fall into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses or believing that we’re not as good as someone else. But we shouldn’t because we don’t know the whole story.
Friends, I made two pans of those sweet rolls and burnt the bottoms of a good many of them. I didn’t post that because it doesn’t look good. I made them with the intention of giving half of them away. I couldn’t do that once I discovered the bottoms were burnt. They still tasted good, but I couldn’t share them like that. Somewhere along the way, I messed up. That doesn’t make for good sharing – in person or on social media.
I don’t do amazingly creative and fun things with my children every day. It’s just that I share about it when I do because I’m proud of myself. I don’t post pictures on social media of them playing their 6th hour of video games because I just needed the time to myself. You don’t get to hear me telling them to just eat whatever they want because I can’t do one more thing today.
We get the wrong idea because we forget that these moments happen as much or more than the notable ones. I don’t believe that we, or at least most of us, intend to present an image of perfection or some unachievable standard that we can fake, fudge and filter in photographs. I think it’s an unintended consequence that can lead to problems for everyone.
Friends we tend to share and talk about the rewards not the struggles. We show the victories and the good days and conveniently never mention the bad days. Look at this amazing thing I’m doing today but don’t look at my ordinary day or, Heaven forbid, my failures. Can we be content to share failures like we share victories?
I don’t mean to imply that there is anything wrong with sharing your wins. In fact, please do because I want to celebrate with you. However, I want to offer a word of caution when looking at other people’s wins or perceived wins – they didn’t just wake up “perfect” and they’re most likely staging it anyway. You’re not seeing the burnt part.
Let’s remember that people don’t reach the peak without the climb. We don’t grow without growing pains. Likely what we’re seeing is the result of a lot of hard work and sacrifice or life with some sort of filter. Comparing our reality with someone else’s staged presentation sets us up for unnecessary disappoint. Remember, just because the image that someone presents to the public looks good on the surface, doesn’t mean the bottom isn’t burnt.
“For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”
2 Corinthians 10:12
