There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, and it’s one of those thoughts that just kind of hits you out of nowhere and then won’t let go.

Why do we believe that other people have life figured out?

Why do we look at someone else and think they have it all together, like they’ve somehow unlocked this version of life that we’re still trying to reach?

Because when I really sit with it, when I really think about it, it just doesn’t make sense.

Every single person on this earth has struggles.

Every person has something they’re carrying. Something they’re working through. Something that keeps them up at night, even if no one else sees it.

Nobody is perfect.

Nobody is living this flawless, easy, magical life, even if it looks that way from the outside.

And I think deep down, we all know that.

But for some reason, we forget.

We see someone’s life, whether it’s on social media, in person, or even just from a distance, and we start to fill in the blanks with our own assumptions.

We tell ourselves they have it easier. That they’re happier. That they don’t struggle the way we do.

And then we turn around and look at our own life, our real life, the one we’re actually living every day, and we feel like we’re the ones on the struggle bus while everyone else is just cruising along.

But that’s not the truth.

That’s a story we tell ourselves.

And I’m not saying that like I have it all figured out, because I don’t.

I’ve done this too.

I’ve looked at people and thought, “Wow, they have the perfect life. They have it so easy. I wish I had what they have.”

And the reality is, I don’t know their struggles.

I don’t know what they’ve been through.

I don’t know what it took for them to get where they are, or what they’re still quietly dealing with behind closed doors.

And this really hit me in a different way after everything that happened in my marriage.

When my husband had an affair, the amount of people who came to me and said, “Oh my gosh, you guys had the perfect marriage,” was honestly shocking.

“You guys seemed like you had everything.”

“You were the couple everyone looked up to.”

And I remember thinking… what?

Because yes, I was shocked by what happened too.

But I also knew something that other people didn’t.

I knew it wasn’t perfect.

I knew we had struggles.

I knew he had his own struggles and I had mine.

I knew we had things we were dealing with together, and things we weren’t talking about enough.

We were not this perfect couple that people thought we were.

But from the outside looking in, that’s what it looked like.

And that right there says everything.

Because if people could look at my life, at my marriage, and believe it was perfect, then how many other lives are we looking at and getting completely wrong?

How many people are we putting on a pedestal without even realizing it?

How many times are we comparing our real, messy, emotional, complicated life to someone else’s highlight reel?

We feel our own struggles so deeply.

We live them.

We carry them.

We sit in them.

But when it comes to other people, we don’t always extend that same understanding.

We assume ease instead of depth.

We assume perfection instead of complexity.

And that’s just not how being human works.

If you are a human being, you have emotions.

You have struggles.

You have moments where you question everything.

You have seasons where you feel strong and seasons where you feel like you’re barely holding it together.

That’s not failure.

That’s life.

I was actually thinking about all of this while I was driving the other day, and I caught myself wondering something I think a lot of us eventually ask.

Why did it take me so long to realize this?

Why did it take me almost 50 years to really see it clearly?

And the answer that came to me was simple, but also kind of hard to sit with.

Because for a long time, I was in survival mode.

I wasn’t open.

I wasn’t vulnerable.

I wasn’t in a place where I could really slow down and look deeper at life, at people or even at myself.

Some of those years, I was just trying to make it through the day.

Just holding everything together.

Just doing what needed to be done.

And when you’re in that space, you don’t question things the same way.

You don’t reflect the same way.

You don’t have the capacity to look beyond what’s right in front of you.

You’re just trying to get through it.

But once you start to come out of that…

Once you start to breathe a little deeper…

Once you give yourself the space to actually feel and think and process…

You begin to see things differently.

You begin to see people differently.

You begin to see yourself differently.

And one of the biggest truths that comes with that is this:

Nobody has it all figured out.

Not one person.

We’re all just doing the best we can with what we have.

We’re all carrying things that other people can’t see.

We’re all navigating life in our own way, at our own pace, with our own set of challenges.

So maybe the goal isn’t to have a perfect life.

Maybe the goal is to stop believing that anyone else does.

— Jenny 🤍