As I often do when I find myself in a column-idea drought, I perused the web this week to see what opinions were floating around the internet. In doing so, I found an opinion piece from Time Magazine published in 2014. 

I was immediately intrigued by the headline:  “How the Cult of Early Success is Bad for Young People.” Time’s Charlotte Alter commented on the magazine cover of that week, which featured a picture of Taylor Swift and a bold-faced caption that read “The Power of Taylor Swift.” 

Alter explained that, though Swift deservingly serves as an inspiration to her younger fans, her massive success can cause them to feel incapable of ever achieving what she has. 

Being a Swift fan myself, I never found myself feeling inferior to her when I was growing up. I especially don’t feel this way today, as I believe her career highlights how hard work and ambition will get you far, but also that great success and fortune have their own burdens.

Swift has acknowledged and confronted these burdens in the past few years. In fact, her past two albums have turned these heartaches into art, and her ability to address both the good and the bad makes me appreciate her artistry. 

I could share the same sentiments about all of the other well-known figures I look up to. So, that said, I initially felt great opposition when reading Alter’s column. 

I try to keep a list of people who constantly inspire me both personally and professionally. Many of these people are artists, actors and writers but also people in my everyday day life — people who have careers and perspectives on life that I admire and resonate with. This list is ever-growing, but it never makes me feel incapable of achieving whatever degree of success they have. However, when I check social media, my mindset is completely different. 

After reflecting on Alter’s piece, I realized that our generation, specifically those in their late teens/early 20s, is witnessing an entirely new concept of success through the lens of social media. 

There’s been a new wave of viral success, and social media’s rapid growth has consumed the world since this article was published six years ago. But even in 2014, Alter shared thoughts that ring true even more today. 

“As most millennials are moving sluggishly through their twenties, the hyper-visible hotshots are getting younger and younger, whittling away at the maximum age limit at which someone can get their ‘big break,’” she wrote. The key-phrase from that quote is “hyper-visible.” 

We live in a world where our biggest successes are easily postable to Instagram stories in a matter of seconds, often making our failures and setbacks feel even harder to swallow, let alone share with others.

Waves of social media influencers are rapidly garnering widespread popularity and massive success, and our generation is watching these achievements unfold every day on their phone screens. As a result, it’s changing the way we share our own lives online. People our age are buying Teslas, houses and going on international vacations as if it’s a normal part of a young adult’s lifestyle. 

By no means am I trying to undermine the success of these online personalities. Many of these creators are people that I follow and admire, and I know they put in hours of hard work to get where they are. But at first glance, it’s easy to think that they just stumbled into this success overnight. 

That said, if you don’t take the time to acknowledge the work that leads to the successful lives they have, it’s easy to scroll through Instagram and become swept into the mindset of feeling stuck, especially when we’re trying to figure out how we want our own lives to unfold. 

Alter explained that easily accessible platforms like YouTube create “pervasive expectations that young people should be achieving more, faster, younger.”

I love having people to look up to, to inspire and push me to be a better version of myself. But, I agree with Alter in that the way we perceive success in our lives should be organic.

Other people’s successes should foster motivation, not discouragement. I hope that as we develop an awareness of social media’s misleading ways, we continue to find healthy, uplifting inspiration in the actions of others.