What if I am pretending?

          What if I am pretending? I smile all the time. Even when there is something bothering me. What if I am pretending my happiness? I see so many people complaining about how miserable they are and their life conditions are usually way better than mine. What if I have been pretending for so long that I started to believe in my own lie? Something like "a lie told often enough becomes the truth", you know? Now how can I know? How can I measure my happiness to see if it is true? It is not like I don't feel sad, it is just that it doesn't last. At all. When I get mad at someone or some situation, for example, I always forget about it after a while. And by after a while I mean 30 minutes tops. 

              What got me wondering was this video about fake happiness on social media. It showed how people would post happy and cheerful pictures when in truth they were posting a lie. They were miserable. I related to that because I always post some picture when I am feeling good. I have never posted a picture when I am a little depressed (I have other texts about low self esteem and believe me, even that doesn't last long). The biggest reason why is, well, I have always thought people who do that are just looking for attention. If you really are depressed, the last thing you think about is posting on social media. So why when we are happy we think about showing it off on social media? Is it to show people how great our lives are? Is it to rub their noses on our success? Is it because we have built this perfect life image and we are always looking to match or get as near as possible of it?

               What if I am pretending, my dear reader? How will I ever know? I guess I will have to keep pretending. Or I am just a happy person that is grateful for whatever share I get from life? Maybe that is it.