Unreasonable Expectations
Unreasonable expectations will cause a problem no matter what age you are. We are all hearing about mental health issues and depression among our high school and even middle school kids. A good portion of that is the same cause that makes aging difficult for some people…. un-reasonable expectations that we set for ourselves.
It used to be you only saw “the good life” portrayed in movies, television and magazines. Somewhere in the back of our minds, we always knew it was either advertising or pretend. Now that “good life” and perfect everything is thrown right smack into the middle of each of our worlds; via Instagram, Facebook, Google and Reality TV!
We have to be careful to maintain the realization that none of this is actually real life; so that our minds do not set the bar of what is normal for every age unreasonably high. If every image that we see is created and styled to perfection we risk losing the ability to decipher what is pretend and what is real, creating unreasonable expectations for ourselves no matter what our age.
Nowadays the middle school girl could believe she should look like what she sees on social media or an older woman could feel that she doesn’t measure up because she does not look and feel like the laughing, pain free (always smiling) people in TV Ads. But all this information even though the way it is presented to us may not be our reality, is valuable. We can learn new things and we can learn new ways to look at things and these beautiful people and beautiful images brighten our days and entertain us. We just might learn something new from those laughing people in the drug ads. A young girl may learn to style her clothes or apply her makeup and find a budget friendly cosmetic she can afford from her Instagram. That food influencer you follow on Instagram my teach you a fantastic new recipe.
All the pretend of the Instagram world, movies, television and social media has its place as entertainment and information. But it is when the pretend world becomes the expectation of the real world that we get into trouble. Social media and artificial intelligence are here to stay and just like television and movies can be great entertainment. It is up to us to balance our expectations in this new and ever-changing world.