September 8, 2025
Nothing is Quite What it Seems
Photos from my friend’s recent trip to San Francisco just popped up in my Facebook stream. Another friend just checked in at a warehouse party. Meanwhile, my Japanese friend just uploaded group photos from a costume party. My Twitter feed is overflowing with check-ins, announcements of late night work stints, and self-congratulatory #humblebrags about who they are hanging out with.
Context is everything. In this world of constant communication, it’s easy to feel as though everyone else’s life is amazing, while you’re still sitting there eating cereal in your underwear.
Of your 2,000 Facebook friends* and 300 people you follow on Twitter, it’s inevitable that some small percentage are doing something interesting at any given moment.
Looking at it the other way around, though, the vast majority of people are sitting around wondering why they seem boring, just like you.
Startup culture promotes this mentality to “Always Be Interesting.” Interesting people are always doing something, meeting someone, or partying. When they’re not, they’re working 18 hour days.
This mentality is perpetuated by our drive, as a community and culture, to be more and more “social” — the more we can communicate, the more often we can remind people we’re interesting and you need to pay attention to us.
These 18 hour days involve 10 hours of goofing around at the office. These parties never as thrilling as they seem to be from the outside. These meetings are interesting, but let’s keep our egos in check. I’ve seen it from all sides, I’m familiar with the need to inflate the importance of an event, and I know how it feels to wonder why everyone else is doing something interesting.
Don’t play into it: nothing is quite as it seems to be.
(* hopefully an exaggeration)
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