Close your eyes and imagine...Imagine a Kingdom where everyone is happy. Everyone travels to exotic destinations, experiences mind-blowing adventures and shares a peaceful existence with an ideal partner. Open your eyes. You are on Facebook.

Jonathan comes home after an arduous day at the call centre. No signed contracts today. With a sour face but harbouring hope to find comfort in the company of his young wife, he pushes the door of their studio. He finds her setting disposable plates on the table for their dinner of pasta with tomato sauce served on the tiny table they recently bought at Ikea.

“Good evening darling!” he says, as he tries to ignore her worn-out appearance and the toys spread across the floor. “How did you manage with the little one today?” he tries to engage her. “Oh, please don’t mention it. He did not stop crying for a minute. The doctor said he must pursue the treatment with antibiotics”, she sighs.

They proceed to the table. Then, Johanna tries to break the ice. “Did you know about the Messika couple? They just bought a superb apartment in Baka. I think Yoni’s parents gave them a hand.”

“You are well informed, aren’t you?” says he sarcastically”.

“No, they posted the photos on Facebook. Speaking of Baka, I was in the neighbourhood earlier and wanted to visit Magali. But she wasn’t answering her phone. Then I saw on Facebook that she took a shopping trip to New York with her sister Eva”, says Joanna in an increasingly oppressive tone.

Jonathan is about to burst. Every one of their friends seems to be enjoying life to the fullest and only they are struggling to make ends meet?

And then, he reconsiders: “Obviously, when a person is recently divorced, it’s a relief to take a breath of fresh air and spend some money right, left and centre. Regarding the Messikas, I don’t need to remind you about the quarrels involving their respective families, so you don’t need to covet their lot.  

Welcome to Facebook, the Kingdom of happy people, where the grass is always greener than the neighbours’!

The Syndrome of Greener Pastures

Everything or just about everything has already been said and written about Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and company. It is useless to point out the innumerable breaches of modesty, waste of time and addiction to social media. Not to mention numerous studies which prove that screen time on Facebook is linked to depressive symptoms, fears and anxiety. But lately, we are witnessing a new problem that adds up to the previous ills and that I will name: “The greener pastures syndrome”.

How did this illness appear out of nowhere?

A Crazy Race Towards Happiness

On the one hand, social media allows us to post most if not all our daily activities in real time. From our date night to our youngest son’s first day in kindergarten. Social media has impacted users with a sort of unhealthy voyeurism, consisting in taking a look, sometimes a second look at the private lives of friends, neighbours, colleagues and even people we’ve never met in person.

But this voyeurism, which is in itself an unspeakable defect, has a different side: it encourages a sort of chronic exhibitionism. Candidates for happiness are sucked into a mad obsession to observe the lives of others, compare it to their own, kick in and then compare again, and so on.

Of course, people whose existence tastes like a short espresso with four spoonfuls of salt will not reveal they are sad reality to the world. Obviously, they will carefully select pieces of their lives, such as an outing with friends, a new conquest, a beautiful landscape to post on their timeline, thus eliciting feelings of envy on their friends (Facebook version). The latter, whose lives are plainer and more ordinary will feel disadvantaged vis-a-vis their “friends”. Of course, as the number of friends increases, so does the feeling of frustration and discontent.

So, you may meet people in real time, yes in real face to face encounters and understand that these people face difficulties in their marriage, cope with children in crisis, and struggle to make ends meet. However, on the screen, they are able to elicit envy. They seem to be popular, they seem to be enjoying life and be masters of their destiny. However, if you witnessed some aspects of their existence behind closed doors, you wouldn’t trade places with them for anything in the world.

Therefore, a choice needs to be made by us, unfortunate residents of an imaginary kingdom: either continue focusing on what’s happening outside and starve our souls, or accept to look inside ourselves and feel grateful for what we have. It is no coincidence that one of the character traits Hashem wants us to cultivate is modesty. The latter requires we don’t expose our private lives and avoid peeping into the keyholes of other people’s habitats. By the way, Halacha prohibits looking into a person’s home when one happens to walk by and their door is open. God knew what he was doing in his infinite wisdom; he gave us the key to achieve true happiness: appreciating the gifts He bestowed upon us and avoiding coveting the gifts given to others. Facebook is an imaginary Kingdom, a virtual illusion, alive only in the minds of social media users. It is home to people who observe, compare, sigh and try to compete to relieve their frustration. They are striving to achieve a non-existent goal and in the process, they cultivate envy and feel disdain for the many treasures that abound everywhere, except on their screens.

The key to satisfaction is thus in our hands. Will we accept to shut the door of the Happy People Kingdom and open the door to authentic happiness rooted in reality?