What’s Real?
The real world feels few and far between these days.
Somewhere between perfectly sculpted Instagram posts, ozempic bodies and botox (which, for the record, I’m also quite fond of), we’ve created a version of life that looks polished, filtered and effortless.
Scroll for five minutes and it’s easy to believe that everyone else apart from you has it together.
Their homes look immaculate, bodies look flawless, holidays look constant, relationships look peaceful and their children look angelic.
Without even realising it, we start to believe something dangerous and toxic, that everyone else’s life is easier than ours.
That their struggles must be smaller and their problems must be lighter. That we’re somehow doing life wrong because ours doesn’t look like that. When realistically we don’t actually know anyone’s reality anymore because what we now see is only surface level.
We see the 1% of someone’s day that made it online. The one good photo out of two hundred. The holiday they saved all year for. The tidy corner of a messy room which doesn’t get posted on instagram. The smiling moment in the middle of a stressful week filled with tears.
When that becomes the version of life we measure ourselves against, it distorts everything, especially empathy, not only to ourselves but to others. When everyone looks fine, we start to assume everyone is fine.
Meanwhile people are walking around carrying things you would never guess.
Financial pressure.
Loneliness.
Exhaustion.
Parenting struggles.
Relationship breakdowns.
Health worries.
Grief.
Self-doubt.
But now we live in a time where instead of talking about it, many people are doing the opposite they’re doubling down on the performance.
Keeping up the appearance online.
Keeping up the appearance at work.
Keeping up the appearance in social circles.
Because admitting you’re struggling now feels like you’ve somehow failed, like you’re doing something wrong simply because your life doesn’t look like everyone else’s highlight reel. So people stay quiet and keep it to themselves.
They smile when asked how they are.
They say “good” or “fine” or “busy.”
And the moment passes but what if we just paused for a second longer? What if when we asked someone how they were, we asked it again and said “how do you feel really?”
How Are You Really?
Sometimes that second question is the one that breaks the autopilot respo se. The one that gives someone permission to drop the performance for a moment. None of us are living the polished version of life we see online. We’re all just navigating our own complicated, messy, beautiful realities behind the scenes. The more we remember that, the kinder we become.
So the next time you ask someone how they are, ask twice because “how are you? how are you really?” is the most valuable question you’ll ever ask.
Hi, I'm Emilia Isabelle 
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