The Double-Tap; Thief of Joy

The double-tap. The mindless scroll. The subconscious comparison.

The inability to stop. 

The subliminal need to tap-tap-comment has somehow wound itself tight around our thumbs hovering like a magnet over brightly lit screens and has become an inescapable way of life.

Every twenty-something year old knows the limbo of figuring life out...of feeling like an outsider-looking-in as everyone else your age seems to be doing just that but you don't seem to have quite grasped the unwritten rules, yet. It is the uncertain, stomach-bottoming-out feeling of being in free-fall...but everyone else is landing - smoothly - and you're still flailing in mid-air trying to stifle the wild panic that your feet may never touch ground.

In a world deeply and widely connected across oceans and time zones, it's impossible to miss what you once may have never known. X from uni was promoted in a new job while Y from school is expecting her third child and Z from down the road has moved halfway across the world. K is engaged after a whirlwind romance and S went backpacking across Europe and M started up her own business. Announcement - celebration - announcement. Tap-tap-comment. You are running out of ways to say "congratulations" and finding new ways to mute your inner voice that insists your life is not enough. 

Comparison is, truly, the thief of joy. Social media, the cruel, cutting hand that slowly steals it and we allow it until we are left with nothing but a hollow space that echoes with the heavy loss of not having what someone else has. Though I'm not quite sure why "liking" cherry-picked and filtered moments, makes us feel like a failure. Because not all moments that matter are given their due weight. Because polaroids don't capture the blood, sweat and tears that went into building a steady career that you don't take for granted. Nor do they capture your parents' tired smiles over dinner when they ask how your day was, or the voice of your best friend over the phone when she tells you she misses you, or the head-to-toe warmth when you're watching the football with your brother, sharing strawberry sweets and laughing at something he said. 

And yet. And yet. There it is. The bone-deep ache that you are not doing enough because your milestones are somewhat delayed. We are entangled in a race we didn't even know we were running and we stretch ourselves thin to nourish our career, relationship, family life, friendships, personal development...and we are burning out and we still feel like it is not enough. I don't even know why I'm so desperate to cross the finish line (what, exactly, is the finish line anyway?) but I know that it feels like I am falling behind while everyone else is sprinting ahead and I am tripping and falling in the madness of it all. 

And it's only when I break away from social media that I can catch a breath and get back up. To remind myself that while instagram feeds are celebrating new chapters, I'm not quite there yet. I still have this chapter to finish and it has so many good parts in it that I want to savour for a little while longer. There are so many moments that I am yet to experience - and yet there are so many that already feel like a gift - and I realise that thank you are words I don't say nearly enough. I am, often, overwhelmed at how much my little life holds and though my blessings may be different to others', they are blessings nonetheless. 

Looking back, I'm not where I thought I would be at sixteen, ten years later. I don't have so much of what I thought I would have. But I also have things I never dreamed of having. I have had prayers that I didn't even know I was making, answered. I have said yes to many choices to which I always thought I would say no. I have met wonderful people with whom I never imagined my path would cross. I have friends-who-feel-like-soulmates, met in places I never thought I belonged.

To every other twenty-something year old who is competing in this race of our own design; there is no finish line. Enjoy this place you're in. You have achieved all you have achieved despite societal pressure feeling like a brick wall to which we concede defeat. It's okay if you've not reached the landmarks of the twenties we have been conditioned to have had photographed by a certain birthday. It's even okay if you don't want the things society expects you to want. Your life, as it is, is enough. There are so many things to be grateful for, to appreciate and cherish. Anything else you are blessed with is bonus. 

Find your happy place - it is not in fanciful vogue-esque photo feeds nor is it measured by the number of likes you can gather in your fist. But it's where you are, now. Peace, I realise, is not to be found in the perpetual search and insatiable need for more. It is in sleeping with a heart that is full simply because of what it already has. In living in the moment and appreciating it. In embracing the messiness of the twenties and not worrying about just how messy it is. In not being attached to things that may not be written, or may be written at a later date. But, for now, I'm right where I am and it is enough. 

I am at my happiest when I am not double-tapping, mindlessly scrolling, subconsciously comparing.