Before you roll your eyes at another “it’s so hard to be a teenager” article, give me a chance. We all share the same classes, the same peers, the same social circles, and I think it’s safe to say there is a constant pressure to feel good about yourself. After all, it seems like everyone else has their lives completely figured out — parties every weekend, college acceptances, daily gym sessions, perfect humor, the list goes on. Meanwhile, you find yourself doomscrolling through endless Instagram profiles, staring at your own following list. I mean, come on, even their photo dumps look perfect.
I wouldn’t be writing this article if I were the only one stuck in this loop of unrealistic expectations. And not to toot my own horn, but I’ve caught people looking at me the same way too. Whether through social media or in person, you can feel it: people analyzing, observing, trying to find some flaw.
Many of us feel guilty or weak for not being able to escape this maze of comparison and Facetune. But the truth is that it has become so normalized that the pressure to appear perfect keeps building, until perfection starts to feel like the entry ticket to social acceptance.
In a school like ours, the gaze is almost impossible to escape. At one of the most expensive schools in São Paulo, we are surrounded by opportunity. And because of that, we often feel like we must make the absolute most of it. Everyone seems to have their life mapped out. Someone gets into an Ivy League. Someone else has the perfect friend group. Another has the perfect relationship. We are constantly told that “nobody’s perfect,” yet our environment quietly treats perfection as the standard.
The gaze traps us in a constant “I’m not good enough” mindset. One that consumes us before we even have the chance to reach the major goals we’re already chasing.
I’m not going to go on a long rant about social media, so I’ll keep it simple. Yes, we all know that social media is curated and often fake. But when the people you compare yourself to online are the same people you sit next to in class every day, the comparison stops feeling abstract. It becomes personal.
And when you compliment someone, they almost never accept it. Instead, it’s deny, deny, deny.
Maybe the real way out of this maze is realizing something simple: no one is standing outside judging your every move. They’re inside the maze too. Just as lost, just as insecure, and just as busy trying to find their own way out.
