The Day I Stopped Watching Everyone Else's Life

Maya Ellis
Jun 18
5 min read

For years, I thought social media was just something everyone did.

You woke up, checked your phone, scrolled through a few posts, looked at what people were doing, where they were going, what they were buying, what they looked like, and somehow that became normal.

But if I'm being honest, it never made me feel better.

It usually made me feel worse.

Not every time.

Not immediately.

But little by little.

Almost without me noticing.

I would see women who looked younger, thinner, happier, wealthier, more successful, more put together.

Women with beautiful homes.

Beautiful vacations.

Beautiful marriages.

Beautiful bodies.

Beautiful lives.

At least that's what it looked like.

And even though I knew logically that social media only showed pieces of people's lives, something inside me still compared.

I think a lot of us do.

We tell ourselves we're just looking.

But sometimes we're measuring.

And that's where the trouble starts.

For me, it showed up as anxiety.

Not feeling good enough.

Not feeling successful enough.

Not feeling attractive enough.

Not feeling accomplished enough.

Not doing enough.

I didn't walk around saying those things out loud.

But I felt them.

The feeling would show up after scrolling.

The feeling would linger long after I put my phone down.

The strange part is that nothing in my actual life had changed.

I still had the same home.

The same family.

The same responsibilities.

The same blessings.

The only thing that had changed was what I had been looking at.

That realization stayed with me.

Because if something I was consuming every day consistently made me feel worse about my own life or myself, why was I continuing to consume it?

So eventually, I took a break from social media.

I just realized I liked myself better when I wasn't constantly looking at everyone else's lives.

So, I finally got off social media for good.

The only accounts I kept were the ones I used to occasionally check on my children's online activity and make sure they were being safe.

Other than that, I stepped away.

That was about eight years ago.

And I don't miss it.

Not even a little.

Today I might look at something online a handful of times a month if I need information about something specific.

Most of the time, the information I need isn't even coming from social media anyway.

And what surprised me most wasn't what I lost.

It was what I gained.

Peace.

Presence.

Space.

The constant noise got quieter.

I stopped worrying so much about keeping up.

I stopped paying attention to what everyone else was doing.

I started paying attention to my own life again.

And that changed a lot for me.

The truth is women often carry social comparison differently than men.

Studies consistently show that women are more likely to compare themselves to others online, especially when it comes to appearance, relationships, lifestyle, and success.

Social media can magnify existing insecurities and make ordinary women feel like they're somehow falling behind when they're actually living completely normal lives.

The body image piece is especially hard.

For decades, women have already been surrounded by messages about how they're supposed to look.

Social media poured gasoline on that fire.

Filtered faces.

Edited bodies.

Perfect lighting.

Perfect angles.

Perfect moments.

And honestly, I get it.

Who wouldn't want that?

What we often forget is that many of those images aren't real.

Some are filtered.

Some are edited.

Some are carefully staged.

Some are entirely manufactured.

And now with artificial intelligence becoming more common, it is getting even harder to tell the difference.

Yet women continue comparing themselves to images that often don't exist in real life.

That's a battle nobody can win.

What breaks my heart is that this doesn't just affect younger women.

Women in their forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond still feel it.

We compare aging.

We compare weight.

We compare relationships.

We compare accomplishments.

We compare where we thought we'd be by now.

Social media simply gives those comparisons a louder microphone.

And it isn't just about appearance.

It's identity.

I think that's the part we talk about the least.

Somewhere along the way, many women start measuring their entire lives against other people's highlight reels.

Their marriage.

Their career.

Their parenting.

Their home.

Their finances.

Their friendships.

Their happiness.

All against snapshots that were specifically chosen because they looked good.

We're comparing our everyday reality to someone's best fifteen seconds.

That's a setup.

Not a fair comparison.

Not an honest comparison.

A setup.

One thing that really changed my perspective was realizing that everybody is curating.

Everybody.

Most people aren't posting the fight they had before taking the family photo.

They aren't posting the credit card bill.

The anxiety.

The loneliness.

The sleepless nights.

The tears.

The uncertainty.

They're posting the polished version.

And meanwhile we're sitting there comparing our entire human experience to a carefully edited performance.

Of course, we feel bad.

We're judging ourselves against information that isn't complete.

That doesn't mean social media is all bad.

I don't believe that.

I've seen women build communities there.

I've seen women find support, encouragement, education, and connection.

I've seen women use their voices to help other women feel less alone.

There is real good that can happen online.

But I think intention matters.

Mindless scrolling and intentional connection are two very different things.

One often leaves us depleted.

The other can leave us feeling understood.

For me, the biggest gift of stepping away was discovering who I was without the constant influence of everyone else's opinions, lifestyles, purchases, and achievements.

I stopped chasing what looked impressive.

I started paying attention to what actually mattered to me.

I stopped asking, "What is everyone else doing?"

And started asking, "What do I want to do?"

That question changed more than I expected.

Because the truth is, I didn't need another influencer.

I didn't need another trend.

I didn't need another person telling me what I should buy, wear, look like, or become.

I needed time to hear myself again.

Maybe that's what some of us are really searching for.

Not more information.

Not more inspiration.