Keeping up with the Joneses

For years people have been ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’. It always seems as though others have more than you- they have a better house, go on better holidays and dress way better than you.

It is hard not to compare, social media gives us a direct insight into other peoples’ lives. You only have to scroll down your Instagram feed to see perfectly positioned coffees on beautiful coffee tables or a gorgeous newborn sprawled on a beautiful bedspread. Immediately you wish you had a coffee with a swirly milk heart and a new baby to show off!

All summer my Facebook feed has been full of holiday pictures- no I do NOT want to see you frolicking on the beach with your tan! Print out your pictures and put them in an album like the good old days!

You can’t help but look though can you? Looking at their lives can give you inspiration for your own right? Wrong. Instead you just look at your own life and see all of the flaws. You find yourself asking why you haven’t had a holiday in 5 years. How come they can afford it and you can’t?

The biggest ‘jealousy’ I have is about prams. As I walk down the street I look down at my buggy- wheels buckled from carrying shopping on the handles. I then gaze at other mums with their iCandy prams and want to run and hide in an alleyway. I begin to imagine all the other beautiful things they own and it makes me feel really disappointed with my own life.

Instagram is filtered, we all know that. So what if real life is filtered too?

As I gaze at those iCandy owning mummies I begin to wonder. What if they bought that with a credit card? What if they go home to a 1 bedroom flat and eat baked beans on toast?

What if those Facebook holiday photos actually conceal a miserable holiday where the couple had a massive fight and didn’t speak the whole time? They are actually going through a rough patch and are considering a divorce.

What if that cute photo picture (the one with the milky heart) is actually hiding a lonely mum? She is sitting by herself in a coffee shop with a screaming baby, wishing she had real friends.

‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ is all well and good but do we really know what their lives are like?

Next time you find yourself comparing your life to someone elses’, just think, they might be wishing their life was more like yours.

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