Over the past few weeks I’ve been feeling quite down, impatient. A feeling of inadequacy- almost as though I’m underachieving in life. So much so that it’s been reflecting on my usually oh-so positive, nothing-can-bring-me-down attitude. I’ve found myself in foul moods, snapping at the smallest things and letting tiny niggles that I would usually ignore affect my actions. It’s been like this for a while and this week I finally decided that I’d had enough and that I needed to pinpoint exactly what has been causing this freak behaviour.

After much thought, I realised that I have very little reason to feel this way. I live in London, the capital city of England, which was always the vision. I have a head office career with international fashion company ASOS- a job that many would dream of. I have a growing and successful blog, amazing friends, a supportive, loving family, a babein’ boyfriend (not that this means that I need a man for any of you singletons) and importantly, I am in good- if not great- health. So, why all the gloom and doom?

For one, I’m ambitious. You’d think that this would be a good thing right? But not if your ambition is used in the wrong way. I know where I want to be and I want it now, but we live in the real world and for most of us, things just don’t happen that way. Goals, dreams and ambitions all take a lot of hard work and time to achieve. It’s come to my attention that of late, I’ve been way too impatient when it comes to where I want to be. I will be where I want to be eventually, I’ve just been clinging on to the hope that I can skip out the long sleepless nights, stress and time that turns dreams into reality.

But I do work hard. I work very hard in fact. Surely I should be at the top already?! Slow down, what’s the rush?… These things take time and quite frankly, I don’t own a time machine and if I did would I really want to use it anyway?! Probably not. Why wish my time away. We live in the present and if you’re too busy focusing on where you’re not, then you don’t appreciate where you are. Lesson number one: enjoy now, appreciate now, live now.

The second reason behind my lack of self-worth points directly to that thing that takes over most of our days. Social Media.

I won’t lie, I’m almost Instagram-obsessed. After all, it is an amazing way to market yourself, keep check on your favourite people to love, hate, secretly stalk and it’s fun. It’s also dangerous. I find myself longing after girls with perfect bodies, perfect careers and basically, perfect lives. It’s so unfair. If they can have it, why can’t I? The answer to that… I can. All I need to do collate the best moments from my life in picture form and post them for the world to see. Fair enough, Mimi Elashiry may have a bod to die for, Mahina Alexander might play in surf-ridden waves with her beautiful surfer boyfriend and Sahara Ray might bask in the LA sun for most of the week. But these girls are all real. They do have bad hair days, they do cry and have mood swings, they do have the occasional boring day where they have to look way back in their photo stream for that insta-worthy post (does #tbt spring to mind?).

I spoke to some of my friends on the matter and they admit that they do the same- envy the lives of social ‘icons’ that they don’t even know. The same friends that I look at as being successful, amazing people with lifestyles that should be celebrated, not questioned.  At the end of the day, everybody wants something that they don’t have.

The point that I’m trying to make is, that these Queens (and Kings) of the Web aren’t better than any of us and we definitely shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to their social media pages. We live in the real world and we all lead unique lives. Lesson number two: don’t compare. Be you and only you and if you still feel the need to compete, then compete with yourself.

So, after some long thought I’ve decided that it’s time to live in the moment, work hard and be appreciative. It’s time to ditch comparing myself to others and to stop lusting after social media lives. It’s time to concentrate on myself and not be afraid to have to wait for my hard work to pay off. I’ve decided that it’s time to be me.

If you’re still reading then congratulations for reaching the bottom of my essay to self-discovery. To all Tigeress followers, I hope that you can find you. But most importantly, I hope that you can be you. Enjoy! xx