Scrolling for More

You know that feeling? You’re lying on the couch in the evening, everything’s actually fine—and then you reach for your phone. Just for a moment. Just to check. And ten minutes later you feel somehow… smaller.

There’s the woman who lost ten kilos in five weeks and is now smiling at the camera with a model figure. The influencer whose hundred thousand followers like everything he posts. The woman who founded her third business and looks like she’s never had a sleepless night. And suddenly your own life isn’t enough anymore. Your evening on the couch feels wrong. Your body not toned enough, your everyday life not exciting enough, your relationship not romantic enough.

I want to be honest with you: I hardly look at what others post anymore. Not because I’m above it all—I’m definitely not there yet. But because I know myself well enough to know: there’s still a long way to go before what happens in this world wouldn’t affect me anymore. And until then, I’d rather stay with my tea, the children, and the cats. Without judgment—because in the end, everything, even the collective unconsciousness that presents itself so beautifully on Instagram and the like, contributes to awakening in its own way.

But I know this world well enough to know what it does to us.

The Ego Loves Comparison

Eckhart Tolle says: The ego survives through comparison. It needs the “better than” or “worse than” to feel itself. Without comparison—without the story that something is missing—the ego has nothing to do. And that’s unbearable for the mind.

Social media is like a buffet for the ego. Every image, every story, every seemingly perfect moment of another person becomes a benchmark for your own life. Not consciously—that’s the insidious part. It happens in the background, quietly, almost imperceptibly. And yet it changes how we feel.

You see someone showing their dream house—and suddenly your apartment, which you wanted so much, isn’t enough anymore. You see a woman presenting her spiritual path so clearly and radiantly—and suddenly you doubt your own. You see a man publicly declaring his love to his partner—and you wonder why yours doesn’t write you such messages too.

But you know what happens in all these moments? You’re no longer here. No longer with yourself, no longer in your life. You’re in a story. In a comparison. In an illusion.

The Second Trap: Entertainment

Comparison is only one side. There’s another trap—and it’s perhaps the more insidious one, because it feels so pleasant.

Scrolling entertains. And the word itself says it: it keeps you down. You’re not awake, not present—you’re like in a fog. And the crazy thing is: it feels good. Because for a moment it frees you from the thoughts that otherwise keep you thinking in endless loops. The worries, the doubts, the inner noise—while scrolling it becomes briefly quiet. But it’s not real silence. It’s numbness.

The Eastern wisdom teachings—whether Buddha, the Upanishads, or the Zen masters—all speak of the same trap: the constant reaching outward. In Buddhism it’s called Tanha—the thirst, the craving that can never be satisfied. Not because there isn’t enough, but because the craving itself is the problem.

We search outside—in images, in likes, in the next story—for something that can never be found there. What we truly want is only one thing: inner peace. Simply rest. Simply being allowed to be there, without anything missing.

But the ego doesn’t want that. Because inner peace means: the ego has no reason to exist anymore. It needs separation, comparison, drama, dissatisfaction. It always finds something. Always.

Coming Back

I’ve discovered something so simple that the mind almost won’t accept it: When I notice that instead of just quickly checking the time I’ve ended up on Instagram, I put the phone down. Not angrily, not disciplined—just gently. And then I feel my body. My feet on the ground. My hands. My breath.

That’s all. No mantra, no technique, no five-step program. Just coming back. To the here. To the now. To what really is—not to what the screen shows me.

Eckhart Tolle calls it: stepping out of thinking and entering into being. And in the moment that happens, comparison and numbness fall away. Not because I suppress them, but because in the light of presence they simply have no ground anymore.

What if you just left your phone aside tonight? Not forever. Not out of discipline. But to see what happens when the images of others fall silent. Maybe it’s silence. Maybe it’s restlessness. But whatever it is—it’s the only thing that’s really there. Not the next post, not the next story—but the breath that comes all by itself. The life that doesn’t only begin when it looks like it does on a screen.

From the heart,
Christina