Katey Laurel’s “This is Christmas” album cover!
Katey Laurel Smith, 8/05/20: I was 17 before I had an email address, 23 before I had a cell phone (flip phone), and 23 before I joined my first social network, which was Myspace. I don’t realize how difficult it must be to grow up in this toxic culture of comparison.
A friend of mine recently told me about his nine-year old child, Blake, who was learning to play the keyboard, but was feeling uninspired to continue pecking away at his exercises after comparing himself to all the YouTube nine-year-old prodigy talent out there.
These days, in our instant-gratification culture where we can see a depiction of everyone’s lives online, people are prone to miss acknowledging the amount of steps there are between being a beginner, learning a skill and becoming an expert at something.
If you are feeling frustrated or uninspired about something you are aspiring to, maybe try letting yourself be a beginner and enjoy exploring the process of going from not knowing anything to knowing something new; anything, no matter how small. Delight in this.
Don’t compare your behind-the-scenes to someone else’s highlight reel. Enjoy the journey, rather than the destination. Explore the moment.
And, if you feel like it, take a break from social media. I just did. It was incredibly refreshing. I also want to remove myself from being part of that toxic comparison on both sides – both portraying the life that I live that may make others feel like they are missing out, and comparing myself to others’ lives, that causes me to feel that same lack. It’s a vicious circle. Authenticity is the key to staying in my own lane.
~ Katey