Have We Forgotten How to Live Our Own Lives?

Lately, I’ve noticed a growing number of people asking the same question in different ways.

Some say they’re tired.

Some say they feel overwhelmed.

Others describe feeling restless, distracted, disconnected, or emotionally exhausted.

No single word seems to fully capture what many people are feeling right now, but I wonder if part of it comes from this:

I think we’ve forgotten how to live our own lives because we’ve become too busy watching everyone else’s.

Comparison is not a new problem.

Long before social media existed, people compared themselves to their neighbors, classmates, coworkers, family members, or the people they saw in magazines and on television. But those comparisons were limited. You knew a handful of people. You saw a handful of lives.

Today, we carry thousands of lives in our pockets.

At any moment, we can open an app and watch someone build their dream home, homeschool their children, start a business, renovate a farmhouse, travel the country in an RV, grow a garden, decorate their home, lose weight, become financially successful, or live out a dream we secretly wish were our own.

And while there is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, I sometimes wonder if we were ever meant to be exposed to so many lives at once.

Borrowing Pieces From Everyone Else

Maybe we’re daydreaming too much about other lives instead of fully living our own.

Maybe we’re spending so much time gathering inspiration that we’ve forgotten how to listen to ourselves.

Maybe we’re taking pieces from hundreds of different people and trying to build our own identity out of them.

A little bit of her home.

A little bit of his career.

A little bit of someone else’s marriage.

Someone else’s wardrobe.

Someone else’s morning routine.

Someone else’s homeschool.

Someone else’s business.

Someone else’s dream.

And then we wonder why things don’t fit together.

It’s because those pieces were never meant for our puzzle.

Each person is building a picture unique to their own life, circumstances, personality, gifts, struggles, and season of life. When we constantly pull pieces from everyone around us, we eventually end up with a picture that feels fragmented.

Not because we’re doing anything wrong.

But because we’re trying to become a collection of everyone else instead of becoming ourselves.

I’ve been off Facebook for several months now.

To my surprise, I don’t miss it.

At all.

For a while, I stayed off Instagram too. Eventually I peeked back in, but lately I’ve found myself stepping away from it again.

There was a time when I genuinely loved Instagram.

Back then it felt like a collection of beautiful photographs. Little glimpses into people’s lives. A still moment captured and shared. Sometimes there would be a thoughtful caption beneath the image that made you pause and think.

It felt slower somehow.

Today, nearly every page is filled with short videos.

Everything moves faster.

Scroll.

Watch.

Scroll.

Watch.

Scroll.

Watch.

The pace never stops.

And I think that’s part of what so many people are reacting to when they say they miss the old Instagram.

I don’t think they’re necessarily missing an app.

I think they’re missing slowness.

They’re missing stillness.

They’re missing the feeling of lingering over something rather than consuming it as quickly as possible.

The Algorithm Knows What We Want

What I’ve noticed lately is that the algorithm has become incredibly good at figuring out what we want.

The moment a new dream enters our heart, the algorithm notices.

Maybe you start researching homesteading.

Or RV travel.

Or gardening.

Or a new career.

Or moving somewhere new.

Maybe you start looking up a life you hope to have someday.

The algorithm catches hold of it almost immediately.

And before long, that’s all you see.

Video after video.

Person after person.

Dream after dream.

And the more you watch, the more difficult it becomes to appreciate the life already in front of you.

Not because your life is bad.

But because your attention has been pulled somewhere else.

I’ve experienced this myself.

A dream enters my heart, and before I know it, my feed becomes filled with people already living that dream.

What begins as inspiration slowly turns into longing.

Then comparison.

Then dissatisfaction.

And eventually, I find myself spending more time watching the dream than actually pursuing it.

That’s when I know something has gone wrong.

Because there is a difference between being inspired by a dream and becoming trapped by it.

The platforms we use every day were not built to help us live our lives fully.

They were built to keep us engaged online, on that specific platform.

That isn’t a conspiracy.

It’s simply how they work.

The algorithm doesn’t care whether what it’s showing you makes you grateful for your life or dissatisfied with it.

It doesn’t care whether you’re becoming more present or more distracted.

Its job is to keep your attention.

And it’s very good at doing exactly that.

The longer we stay, the more ads we see.

The more content we consume.

The more time we spend looking at screens instead of the people sitting across from us.

The Weight Behind The Screen

Even YouTube feels different to me now.

As someone who has created videos myself, I have learned things that are difficult to unsee.

I see the packaging.

The thumbnails.

The titles.

The hooks.

The pressure creators feel to remain relevant.

The pressure to post consistently.

The pressure to turn ordinary life into content.

The pressure to make a video perform.

And while there are wonderful creators making meaningful content, I think there is also a side of content creation that people rarely talk about.

The weight of it.

The hours behind it.

The pressure behind it.

The way it can slowly pull you away from the very life you’re trying to share.

I used to think it would be easy to create videos while continuing to live a slow, intentional life.

But over time I realized something.

Both require time.

Both require attention.

Both require energy.

And eventually something has to give.

I began looking around at other people online and wondering how they seemed to do it all so effortlessly.

How did they homeschool their children?

Care for their homes?

Maintain a peaceful lifestyle?

Run businesses?

Create videos?

Post constantly?

Keep up with everything?

Maybe some truly have found a rhythm that works for them.

But I also suspect that the internet rarely tells the whole story.

It shows us curated pieces.

Moments.

Highlights.

The finished picture.

Rarely the full cost.

The Internet Is Not Real Life

I recently watched a video that stayed with me.

A man appeared cheerful and happy in one clip, and the text on the screen reflected how people perceived him, “you’re always so happy and smiling” they said.

Then the next clip revealed how he actually felt, he stated how he was “actually sad 90% of the time.”

The pattern repeated several times.

What people saw.

What was actually true.

What people assumed.

What reality looked like.

And by the end, the message was simple.

The internet is not real life.

At least not fully.

We’re seeing fragments.

Moments.

Highlights.

Not the complete picture.

And yet we compare our complete lives to those fragments every single day.

Maybe that’s why so many people feel exhausted.

Maybe it’s why more people are talking about slow living, simplicity, intentionality, and stepping away from social media altogether.

Maybe people aren’t searching for a different life.

Maybe they’re searching for their own life again.

The one that exists beyond the screen.

The one that’s waiting outside the app.

The one that can’t be captured in a reel, a thumbnail, a caption, or a perfectly curated feed.

Lately, I’ve found myself wondering what life feels like when there is no constant stream of other people’s lives flowing into my own.

What dreams would remain if nobody was advertising theirs to me?

What would I spend my time thinking about?

What would I notice?

What would I create?

What would I become?

I don’t know the answer yet.

But I want to find out.

Because at the end of the day, I don’t think most of us are searching for a better life.

I think we’re searching for the ability to fully see the one already in front of us.

And maybe that’s where peace begins.

Not by finding something new to consume.

But by looking up long enough to remember that we already have a life of our own to live.

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A Final Thought

The more time I spend away from social media, the less I miss it.

Not because I’ve become more disciplined.

Not because I’m trying harder.

But because I’m beginning to remember what life feels like without a constant stream of other people’s lives flowing into my own.

And the truth is, I don’t think that’s a small thing.

I think it’s changing us more than we realize.

I think it’s shaping our thoughts, our dreams, our attention, our contentment, and the way we experience our own lives.

Maybe that’s why so many people feel exhausted.

Maybe we’re carrying far more than we were ever meant to carry.

Not physically.

Mentally.

Emotionally.

Attention was never meant to be divided between thousands of lives.

Maybe peace isn’t found by finding better content.

Maybe it’s found by returning to our own lives again.